Human Resources
by Michelle
Summary: The office job was supposed to be easy.
1. Prologue

_This fic would not have been possible without all the help from the Hive - thanks guys!_

_Special thanks go out to Amanda for the title. This one's for you!_

* * *

The office job was supposed to be simple. She really needed a break after the last mission went to hell in a handbasket - she was still recovering from a bullet wound and on doctor's orders to take it easy, so when she'd asked to go back in the field, Coulson had given her the easiest thing on his docket.

_Easiest_, _however_, she thought regretfully, _didn't translate to interesting_.

Here, on her boring, utterly uninteresting mission, she was Rose Nelson, the most recent addition to the secretary pool at _Hellenic Imports of Greater Wisconsin, Inc._ As potential HYDRA shell corporations went, this one left a lot to be desired. In her three weeks here, as near as she could tell, she'd discovered that Kalamata olives sold better in the summer, that the second part of the phrase "water cooler" represented more of a hope than reality, and the salesman with the grabby hands got ever so slightly grabbier on Tuesdays. It attested a lot to her state of mind that she'd been debating tailing him on Monday nights to figure out why.

Judging from the red-rimmed, bleary eyes that accompanied his periodic interest in the cut of her blouse, she rather suspected she knew the culprit anyway.

Her inbox refreshed, and she clicked open the new message, hoping for something that would take her mind off the numbing conditions in her cubicle. Apparently, _Hellenic Imports_ was in the market for a new warehouse guy. She thought she remembered something about an accident last week. Something about the circumstances had pinged her interest, though she couldn't say what, and now that they were hiring someone new . . .

Well, she'd call Coulson on her lunch break. That was something to look forward to, at least. Maybe he'd want to talk about his latest trading card acquisition or something.

The two hours before lunch dragged, and she bolted the moment the clock changed to noon, neatly sidestepping the various lunch offers that were sure to spring up. It wasn't that she was particularly attractive or interesting company (she could be, of course, if she wanted to be, but that wasn't why she was here), but she was _new_ and she had a feeling that _new _didn't happen very often in these parts. Sure, she needed to cultivate those offers of friendship (and she did), but today she had other business to attend to.

She walked briskly across the parking lot to the shopping center on the other side of the busy road, her sensible loafers clacking on the pavement. Grabbing a sandwich and a coffee from the cafe there, she smiled at the sullen-faced clerk. He'd obviously had just as interesting and invigorating morning as she had.

Slipping into a booth at the back, she pulled out her phone.

"Coulson," the voice on the other end said. Her handler's voice was clipped and polite as ever. Some things would never change.

"Hi!" she said too perkily, just in case anyone nearby was listening. "This is Rose! How are you?"

She heard Coulson turn to someone else in the room and say, "It's Romanoff." To her, he said, "Anything to report?"

"Why as a matter of fact, yes! I had the most interesting news today!"

"The warehouse?" he asked. She knew he kept an eye on all his agents whereabouts, and he'd probably gotten the information about a new hire right around the time she did.

"Uh huh." She smiled broadly as she talked, sipping from her styrofoam cup and bouncing her leg, pretending like she was talking to a close friend.

Actually, if she really thought about it, she was. She didn't have a lot of friends, just Coulson and Clint. Well, if you could call them that. The thing with Clint was as complicated as the thing with Coulson was neat. She and her handler had comfortable, well-established boundaries, ones that facilitated their smooth working relationship, but push come to shove, if she really needed someone, he would be there. Clint, of course, would too, but sharing personal information with him always led to _feelings_, uncomfortable ones that made her lose concentration in the middle of otherwise important affairs.

She didn't have a whole lot of experience to go on, but she wasn't an idiot, and the things that her partner had her feeling, the way he made her stomach spin around and eat itself, the way her palms started to sweat if she thought about him for too long . . . Well, those things weren't really signs that she thought of him as a friend, not exactly. She might not know what to label the strange dance they were making around each other, but she knew better than to think that it was just "friends".

The worst part of it was that the feeling had grown even more intense in past months, to the point where she had a hard time concentrating even on missions. It had been one of the reasons that she'd taken a bullet during her last operation; she had been distracted, worried about him off on his own, and it had affected her work.

"Do you want backup?" Coulson asked, and she paused, taking another sip of her drink. She hated asking for it, but if things went south, it would be a good idea to have someone else around. The local pd was top notch, all things considered, but she didn't want to have to rely on cops if HYDRA really did show up.

"That would be great," she said, already going through the list of possible candidates for the role. There were only so many people suitable for the job, only so many people that Coulson would knowingly send in to work with her. If Clint wasn't on a mission, he'd be first on that very short list.

Coulson confirmed her suspicion with his next breath.

"Taylor, Carter, and Barton are available," he said. "If you have a preference?"

She bit her lip before she answered, not wanting to sound overeager. "I haven't seen Clint in ages!"

If she didn't overthink it, maybe she could convince herself that what she was saying wasn't the truth, that it was just part of her cover.

"We're going to send Barton in," Coulson said, and she thought she heard a chuckle in his voice. "Make sure his application goes to the top of the stack."

"No problemo!" she said brightly, powering through the twisting clench in her stomach. "Ta!"

She snapped her phone shut and slid it back into her pocket. Well, she got what she wanted.

Great.

* * *

He rolled into the parking lot with an odd mixture of nervousness and anticipation mixing around with the coffee in his stomach. The anticipation he understood - he always felt like that before a mission, often times throughout the mission, but nervousness? That was new.

He strode into the reception area, hopefully giving off more confidence than he felt. He knew that Natasha was upstairs somewhere, tracking orders or answering phones or whatever it was that she did while she tried to figure out just what this import company was up to. He also knew that she was going to make certain that he was the only real candidate for the warehouse job, so the nervousness wasn't a result of that.

_You know what this is,_ his brain whispered even as he signed in and took a seat on an ancient plastic chair to wait.

Yeah, he knew what this was.

He hadn't seen Natasha in months; they'd been on separate missions before this, and when hers had wrapped up early (she'd been fucking _shot _and he should have been there with her, he should have had her back, he should have been able to do something, but he'd been in Argentina not Uzbekistan and he hadn't been able to do anything except call Coulson and ask for a status update), she'd been sent here, on a deep cover assignment.

He wasn't ashamed to admit that he'd been worried about her. What concerned him was how much he'd been worried about her, even after Coulson told him that she was recuperating fine and, later, that she was well enough to be sent out in the field again.

No, his worry was very much based on the fact that he was in love with her. It was stupid as shit, he knew that, because that sort of thing left you compromised in a job where you couldn't afford distraction, and here he was, head over heels for her.

Christ, she was going to kill him.

It didn't help that he was ninety percent certain that she felt the same way. He was an observant guy, and there was no way she'd been giving him those looks without it meaning _something_. Whether or not that something was concern over whether or not her partner was going insane was another matter entirely. Thus, the ninety percent.

That said, it sure hadn't felt like ninety percent when they'd kissed in Brussels on their last mission together. They'd been made and were on the run, trying to get to the extraction point before the drug lord of the month caught up to them, and when Clint had spotted a busy nightclub, it seemed like as good a place as any to lose a tail.

She'd let him lead her down onto the dance floor, grinding with him amongst the writhing masses, and when one of the goons had gotten too close, she'd slipped her arms tighter around his neck and kissed him.

_Kissed_ him. Kissed _him_.

Fucking hell.

He'd be more inclined to believe that she was just aiming for distraction if she hadn't sucked on his lip, if she hadn't clung to him for a little longer than strictly necessary, digging her fingers into his arms as she held her body flush with his. Natasha didn't do unnecessary things, and he'd resolved to talk to her about it the first chance he got.

But then they'd been off and running again, getting to the helicopter only minutes ahead of their tail, and once they'd gotten back to base, it was time for debriefing. He'd intended to go to her quarters, to see if she was up to talking, but after he'd showered, his bed beckoned, and he was really in no shape for that kind of talking anyway.

When he'd gotten up the next morning, he discovered that she'd already been shipped out for her next assignment. He'd always thought he was the king of avoidance, but it looked like she bested him in that, too.

"Mr. Thompson?" the receptionist asked. He jerked his head up at his cover name. "They're ready for you."

Pushing thoughts of Natasha aside, he stood.

Show time.


	2. Chapter 1

_Thanks so much to those of you who've read so far! I hope you're all enjoying :-)_

_There are a total of 7 parts to this, if you were curious! If you've a moment, I'd love to hear what you think!_

* * *

She'd been expecting him to call, yet she still managed to be surprised when her phone buzzed that night around ten. It read as an unlisted number, but she knew it was him; no one else would call her this late.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Nat," he said, his voice cutting into her like an icepick. It had been a long time since she'd talked to him, a long time since she'd kissed him to throw off a tail and ended up throwing herself off instead, and it was good to hear his voice. She hadn't realized until that moment just how much she'd missed him.

"Hey," she said, already feeling like an idiot or a broken record. Maybe both.

"So, uh, I got the warehouse job," he said after a pregnant silence. Neither one of them were especially good at small talk, not when they were being themselves, and even though he was probably her best friend in the world, it was hard to readjust to talking after so long a break.

"Figured you might," she said. "When do you start?"

She heard the telltale sounds of paper being shuffled in the background, and she'd be willing to bet he was nervously fiddling with paperwork. It was a bad habit of his, and one she'd picked up from him.

"Day after tomorrow. They asked for tomorrow, but I didn't want to seem too eager."

"Good," she replied.

There really wasn't much else to say; Coulson would have briefed him on his tasks as well as given him a run down of the operation so far, so there was no need for her to be redundant. Still, she was reluctant to say the words that would end the call, wanting to stay on the line with him for just a few minutes longer, even if it was to just hear him breathe.

She shook her head as if to rid itself of the thought. Sometimes, she could be a real fucking idiot.

"So, anything else, or . . .?" she asked.

"No!" he said too loudly, and then in a calmer voice, he added, "No, I just . . ." She could hear him swallow, could hear him hesitate over his next words. She waited him out rather than startle him out of saying whatever it was he wanted to say.

At length, he said, "How are you, Nat?"

She smiled, despite herself. "I'm . . . good," she said thoughtfully, and she was only a little shocked to realize that she meant it. For the first time in a long time, yeah, she was good.

"You?" she asked.

He chuckled. "Yeah, good. Couple of rough jobs here and there, but . . . I heard you were shot? A while ago, someone got lucky?"

She nodded, her hand unconsciously moving to the spot where she'd been winged. It had healed quickly and well under SHIELD medical supervision, but it still sometimes twinged on rainy days. "Yeah, a lucky shot. I'm okay, though. All stitched up."

"That's good," he said, and she wondered idly if he felt as awkward as she did. "Hey, listen, do you maybe want . . . Do you want to get a drink or something? I mean, we're going to be on this op together and I thought it might be helpful if we coordinated our efforts."

"Um," she said, biting her lip.

She wanted to say yes, every part of her was screaming it, but she had an early day tomorrow, and she really needed to get some sleep. Besides, they couldn't go out anywhere for that drink and risk being spotted together. He'd have to come here, and she didn't trust herself alone with him, much less alone with him and the half a bottle of rum next to the fridge.

She couldn't say any of that, though, so she went with, "I'd really like to, but I can't tonight. Rain check?"

"Oh, sure, definitely," he said too quickly, almost as if he were trying to cover something up. She had half a mind to call him on it, except that she was pretty sure he would throw it right back at her.

"Well, um, okay," she said. Christ, what was it about this man that made her act like such an idiot, anyway?

"I'll talk to you later, then?" he said.

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"Right."

"Goodnight," he said at last, and was she imagining it, or did he sound kind of wistful?

"Goodnight," she said, and she forced herself to pull the phone away from her ear, to hang up and put the damn thing down instead of waiting to hear him end the call.

She groaned, falling backwards onto the bed. The delicious rasp of his voice still rang in her ears, thrumming through her body, and she could tell that she was going to end up drinking and masturbating to thoughts of Clint tonight.

Asshole.

* * *

She figured out that everything had gone according to plan when Sally, the fifty-something office manager with two kids and frizzy hair wandered over to her desk with an excited expression on her face.

"Hi, Rose! How are you!"

Sally was the type of woman who spoke in exclamations. Natasha liked her; it took a lot to raise two kids alone and still have a sunny outlook on life.

And besides, Sally brought her an extra brownie most Mondays. With walnuts, even.

"Have you heard the news?" Sally asked her, looking nearly beside herself.

Sally was also a notorious gossip, which was one of the reasons that Natasha tried to hang around her. They went for lunch at least twice a week, giving Natasha yet another line of information about the company they both worked for.

Natasha smiled genuinely. She might be playing a part, but Sally was her friend. Try as she might, she just couldn't pretend about that sort of thing.

"What's up?" she asked, rolling away from her keyboard and focusing entirely on Sally.

The older woman glanced around the office once before saying, "There's a new guy in the warehouse!"

Clint, of course, but why was that . . .?

"You know Beth who works down there, right?" Sally didn't wait for Natasha's nod before proceeding. "Well, she says the new guy is H-O-T-T, and she invited us down for our break."

Natasha glanced at the clock, then grinned at Sally. "Let me grab my lunch."

She let Sally lead the way downstairs, and she just spoke enough to keep the other woman talking about whatever new gossip had come her way. Beth ushered them into the warehouse break room when they go there, and it didn't take long before they got down to business.

"So where's this new stud muffin?" Sally asked, waggling her eyebrows. Natasha covered her chuckle by taking a sip from her water bottle. These two used all kinds of words she'd never heard before outside of books and old tv shows. She'd half-thought that they were made up, that no one talked like that. Sally and Beth, however, had proved her wrong about a number of things.

Beth looked over her shoulder before answering. "He's been all over the place this morning. JT has been showing him the ropes. Guy knows how to work with his hands, if you know what I mean."

Sally laughed. "Nice hands?"

"Nice _everything_," Beth said, spreading her hands wide and gesturing inarticulately. Carefully swallowing a spoonful of yogurt, she added, "Too bad it's not summer, is all I'm saying."

Natasha frowned even as the older women exchanged knowing smirks. "Summer?" she asked.

"Oh, honey," Sally said, touching her hand. "You haven't lived until you've been in the warehouse during the summer."

She must have still looked confused because Beth said, "That's when the guys down here start losing their shirts."

"That's a good thing?" she asked.

"Oh, some of them hide it well, but they really deliver the goods," Sally grinned, clearly proud of her pun.

"Rosie-girl, come summer, you are going to need to bring extra panties to work," Beth nodded seriously.

Natasha snorted. Too bad this was a mission because she was really starting to like it here.

She was just starting to relax into the conversation when JT, the warehouse manager walked in with Clint trailing behind him.

He looked good.

Really good.

Good enough that she had a hard time focusing on the task at hand, namely that this was supposed to be the first time she'd met him. But, shit, she'd forgotten that crooked smile of his and the way his eyes twinkled when he was happy, and she hadn't seen him in ages, not since that mission in Belgium and . . .

" . . . Rose Nelson, one of our secretaries," JT was saying, and Natasha forced herself to pay attention.

Clint extended his hand to her. "Hi, Frank Thompson," he said in that dangerously sexy rasp of his, and she gripped his hand, squeezing tightly as he met her gaze coolly. Fuck, it was good to see him.

"Rose," she said, and was it just her or did her voice sound choked?

"Hi, Rose."

His eyes slid away from her as JT introduced him to Sally, and Natasha felt something nudge her under the table. She turned away from Clint to find Beth raising her eyebrows at her, a funny little look on her face.

Beth barely waited until the door shut behind JT and Clint to say, "Told you so."

Natasha blushed while they teased her good naturedly for the rest of lunch.

* * *

"Hey, Nat," he said when he called her later that night. She was wrapped in a towel, her hair dripping when she picked up.

"Hey," she said.

"So, uh, today went well."

"Yes," she agreed, swallowing hard to cover for the feeling that she was losing control.

"Didn't notice anything out of the ordinary," he said.

"Yeah."

The line grew silent, and she wished she were able to pretend around him, that she could slip into another persona and wear it like a second skin. Life would be so much easier if she really were Rose Nelson, secretary.

"So, what about that rain check?" he asked.

He must have surprised her because she didn't have a good excuse ready.

"Okay."

"Okay?" he asked incredulously. Hell, she was surprised, too, but then she found herself giving him directions over to her place and he was offering to bring something to drink. Before she knew it she telling him which store to stop at on his way and then they were off the phone and he was on his way over, no going back.

It took her a solid minute to catch her breath.

After that, it was a mad dash as she raced to put on clothes and dry her hair. The knock came sooner than she expected, and she hurried to the door only to slow by the mirror and check her appearance. Her reflection rolled its eyes at her idiocy. This was Clint, not her date to senior prom.

She drew her weapon, holding it behind out of sight as she pulled the door open. She really had to talk to Coulson about renting places without peep holes.

Clint was there, though, looking as nervous as she felt. He smiled widely and held up a bottle of what looked to be like a good vintage of wine.

"I come bearing gifts," he said.

She uncocked her gun and opened the door wider. "Well, in that case, I guess you can come in."

He followed her into her apartment, and she could feel his presence thick around her while she grabbed two glasses and the corkscrew. She'd been in town for a while, but she didn't invite people over (too risky), and while he wasn't unwelcome (just the opposite), he was like an itch under her clothes, something she couldn't ignore.

She let him open the wine and pour her a glass while they talked. It was nice, better than nice really, to talk to him. She'd been here for a while, and she'd almost forgotten what it was like to talk to someone as herself rather than _Rose Nelson_.

He told her about what happened in Argentina and Taiwan after that, and she offered her version of events from Uzbekistan. If they didn't quite find the same ease of conversation that she remembered, the wine certainly helped things along.

An hour later, she was feeling pleasantly buzzed. So buzzed, in fact, that instead of continuing on with the conversation about the latest in the continuing saga of Coulson and his Captain America cards, she blurted, "I missed you."

Clint stopped with his glass halfway to his mouth. He set his glass back down on the table without drinking.

"Yeah," he said with entirely too much honesty in his eyes. "Missed you, too."

They had inched closer on the couch as they drank, and she'd been noticing his presence all night, but now she was hyper-aware of him, here in her apartment, sitting next to her while they shot the shit.

"Glad you're okay," he murmured, and she wasn't sure what the pressure in her stomach meant, but she sure as hell recognized the feeling between her legs, and was it getting hot in here?

He leaned in, and she knew what he was doing, just like she knew it was a damn stupid idea.

She was going to let him anyway.

He got closer, so close she could feel his breath on her face, could count his eyelashes if she wanted to, but she didn't. She just wanted to know what it felt like to kiss him, the real him, without other people around. She wanted to know what his mouth tasted like, what his tongue felt like against hers.

He touched one finger to her face then, and she leaned into him, tamping the part of her down that was wary of such contact. Closer then, and closer still, and she could practically taste him now that they were breathing the same air. She felt the heat of his lips, so very, very close to hers and he leaned just a little more to close the distance and then . . .

The motherfucking phone rang.

She pulled away from him sharply, grabbing for her phone like a lifeline because Clint was her best friend, the person who knew her best, and she trusted him but he scared her to death.

"Romanoff," she barked into the mouthpiece.

"You're late with your report."

It was Coulson, and he'd saved her from what was certain to have turned awkward.

So why didn't she feel relieved?


	3. Chapter 2

_Thanks to everyone here who's been reading and reviewing! I appreciate you guys so much!_

_WARNING: this chapter contains a depiction of attempted non-con and some minor violence. Proceed with caution. _

* * *

Clint had been in town for a month by the time the boss was promoted to corporate, and as chairman of the Sunshine Committee, it fell to Sally to organize a party.

Natasha had to admit that the woman knew what she was doing. It looked like the entire office had turned out, despite it being held after work on a Friday (she suspected that a lot of that had to do with the open bar Sally had put together).

Natasha and Clint had arrived separately, but she'd been eyeing him surreptitiously all evening, wishing she could just walk over to where he was laughing with two warehouse guys. It would be so simple to go and stand with him, to flirt with him, pretend she was bored secretary Rose Nelson looking for a good time with new warehouse guy Frank Thompson. They'd had lunch a few times since he'd started working here, and it would be easy to explain why she was hanging out with him at the party. So, so easy …

Which, of course, would totally defeat the purpose of having two agents here. They needed to cover as much ground as possible, talk to as many people as they could, and spending time together would really limit that.

Not that they were spending much time together. They hadn't talked much at all in the past month, not really, not about anything other than work, and even that had been merely perfunctory, both of them acting gun shy. It was like they were all the way back at square one again - partners but not friends, people who happened to work together, but had separate lives.

None of that meant that she didn't spend far too much time thinking about him and what had happened at her apartment that night. Or, rather, what had almost happened that night. She kept replaying the scene in her mind, over and over, all damn day, and every time she thought she finally got him out of her head, something else set her off. Thoughts of Clint were pervasive, coloring her every thought, and she wanted to tear her hair out with frustration.

She cleared her throat when the handsy salesman, Mark returned from the bar. She had to get her head in the game. The sooner they could figure out whether this place was a HYDRA front, the sooner they could get the hell out of this dump and back to civilization. Maybe she could get a job in Eastern Europe next. Somewhere cold and gray that reminded her of her childhood. The idle hope was motivation enough to force a smile to her lips when Mark handed her a drink.

"You can't seriously be interested in the new guy," he said like he thought he was competition for someone like Clint. She repressed the urge to roll her eyes.

"You've been looking over at him all night," Mark finished.

Well, shit. Apparently she wasn't being as subtle about her interest as she thought.

She shrugged, not wanting to lie (she tried to stay as close to the truth as possible when undercover), but she didn't want to put Mark off either. He was high enough up on the totem pole here to have access to areas that were off limits to her as a secretary. He might even get the promotion to take over for the boss, and she didn't want to jeopardize her relationship with someone like that. She wanted that access, she could use that access, and she wanted to do everything in her power to get it.

"Besides," Mark continued, "He told me he has a girlfriend."

Well, that was a bald-faced lie. Neither one of them would give personal information like that on a mission. Offhand comments like that could require them to drum up a formerly-fictional significant other, bringing yet another person into the line of fire. No, Clint wouldn't have said anything like that. No need to let Mark know that she knew that, though.

She sipped her drink, grimacing slightly at the cloying sweetness of the beverage. Jesus, how did people drink stuff like this? She smiled up from underneath her eyelashes at him, perfectly certain of the picture she was painting.

"That's too bad," she said, her voice pitched low. "But I'll get over it."

Mark grinned, slipping his arm around her back. She told herself not to shudder. She knew she needed to encourage him, but there was no way in hell she was going to let this slimebag feel her up just to gain better access to …

Oh, god, she thought she was going to pass out. What the fuck was wrong with … ?

She wobbled on her feet, stumbling forward, and Mark reacted easily, too easily, grabbing her cup before she spilled the last remnants of her drink.

"You okay?" he asked, but there was something strange in his voice, something curious that she couldn't quite put her finger on through the haze in her mind. What was going on with her? She never felt like this, not from one drink …

"Maybe you need to get some air," he said, and he started to guide her toward the door. "Let's head outside for a couple minutes."

She wanted to resist, but she could barely find the wherewithal to stay upright. What the hell was in …

Oh,_ fuck_, her drink.

She knew with sinking certainty that she'd been drugged, that the overpowering sweetness of her drink had covered up whatever Mark had slipped in the drink. She hadn't even thought about that, hadn't considered that someone would try that in the middle of a work party, but he had and oh, fuck, they were almost to the door now and she wanted to scream, but all she could manage was a muffled, "Nngh."

Mark's fingers dug painfully into her upper arm as he walked her away from the party, and he shushed her.

"Now, c'mon, doll face, you'll feel a lot better once we get outside."

She rolled her head, trying to get someone's attention, anyone's attention, but Sally and Beth were in deep conversation and Clint was nowhere in sight. Goddamn it, where was her backup when she fucking needed it?

They were outside now, and the rain was coming down in sheets, soaking her dress through in a matter of seconds and setting her teeth to rattle. The downpour didn't seem to phase Mark, though, and he guided her across the parking lot with sure steps.

She knew she had to get out of this situation right now, before he managed to get her into his car. Once he did that, her chances dropped significantly. If she weren't mostly incapacitated, there were any number of things she could do, from stabbing him with her shoe to simply punching him in the face. This wasn't the kind of thing that happened to people like her, it just wasn't. She was shaky and pliant and Mark could do whatever he wanted and she couldn't stop him and this wasn't _her_, dammit.

Concentrating all of her rage into one last push, she shoved away from him, but even though he released his vice grip on her arm and moved away, she was too unstable in her shoes, too unsure on her feet. She made it two steps before he grabbed her again, this time around her middle, crushing her back against him with such force that she felt something in her chest give.

"How's about we take a little drive?" Mark said, when he reached his car, and the ease with which he propped her against the side of his car while he unlocked the door made her shudder. She hated feeling helpless, hated feeling scared, but she was both right now, and her ribs hurt so bad. Fuck, fuck, _fuck _…

He opened the door and put her inside, and it chilled her heart to see him smile at her as he buckled her in. He closed the door, walked around the front and …

Landed with surprising force against the hood.

What?

Mark struggled back to his feet, but someone grabbed the front of his shirt and his head snapped to one side with the force of the blow that glanced across his face.

She knew the hand that threw that punch.

Clint.

She breathed a little easier now, panicked just a little less.

Clint hit him again, and Mark spun around, landing on the hood of his car. The rain was coming down in force now, and it mixed with the blood coming from his mouth and nose.

_Good_, she thought. _I hope it's broken_.

Mark didn't get back up, just slid down the hood of his car until he was out of view.

Clint came around the side of the car, trying the door handle.

"Shit," she heard him say, his voice muffled through the glass. "Nat? It's locked."

She was fading, fast, and it was getting harder and harder to concentrate on the sound of his voice. What was locked?

"I'm going to get the key," he said, but she couldn't remember why he needed a key. Where was she, anyway?

Clint disappeared briefly, but then he was back and the door was open, and even though there was suddenly water beating down on her face, she felt calmer, better.

"Hey, stay awake for me, okay?" Clint said, and she thought he might be carrying her, but why would he be doing that? She could walk on her own, she could handle herself …

The next thing she knew, she was in an unfamiliar truck, but it was warmer in here, and she was in a lot of pain and she was so tired …

She fell asleep with Clint's hand warm on her shoulder.

* * *

He kept to the speed limit on the way back to his extended-stay, but it was a near thing. He wanted to take her to the ER, he _wanted _to make them run tests and to call the police to arrest that sack of shit he'd left in a heap by his car, but he knew Nat wouldn't want that. That kind of thing would jeopardize the mission, and she'd been here for too long already. She'd be pissed as hell if he blew it now.

Still, it felt great the kick that asshole in the ribs. He'd think twice before he tried anything like that again. That said, Clint would be sure to keep close tabs on the lowlife until they could break cover.

"Hey, we're here," he said softly when he pulled into the spot outside his motel. "Time to wake up."

Natasha was slumped in the seat beside him, but she was still responding to the sound of his voice, so he took that as a good sign.

She perked up a little more when he got her out of the truck and onto her feet, and by the time he got her inside, she was almost talking in complete sentences.

He locked the door behind them and led her further into the room. She had started to shiver in earnest, looking so small and helpless and not at all like Natasha that his heart broke a little.

"Come on, sweetheart," he said, tugging on the edge of her dress. "Let's get you out of this and into something dry."

She crossed her arms firmly over her chest, blinking owlishly at him through the haze of drugs.

"No, I'm not … Not like this …" she mumbled, slurring her words almost to the point of incomprehensibility. It scared him to see such a lack of control in her, and he wondered just how much the guy had slipped into her drink.

Letting go of her dress, he touched her chin with his index finger, tilting her face up toward his. "Nat," he said softly, but firmly. "Nat, look at me."

He repeated her name and dropped his hands to her shoulders, trying to calm her, focus her.

"Nat, come on, sweetheart, it's me."

She frowned, finally looking at him. Her eyes were too wide though, her pupils too large, and he wasn't sure if she realized it was him.

"Clint?" she asked, her voice small and uncertain.

"Yeah, Nat, it's me," he said, nodding.

She swallowed, then looked away, and he could see her attention wander, see the moment he lost her again. "Only Clint calls me Nat," she said. "Do you know where he went? I think I saw him a second ago …"

Jesus, it was worse than he thought. Approaching her now like he would a spooked cat, he said, "I'm right here, Nat. I'm right here."

She blinked again, more rapidly. "I'm cold."

She shivered, sounding so much like a petulant child that, despite his concern, he couldn't stop the grin that stretched his features.

"Can I put you into something warmer, then?" he asked, tentatively reaching behind her, feeling for the zipper on her dress.

She slapped his hands away, beating at him ineffectually.

"Stop."

He did.

"Okay, Nat. Honey, I know you don't want to be touched right now, but if I'm going to get you warm, I need you to let me take this dress off you. It's wet and gross, and I'm sure it's uncomfortable, right?"

She nodded uncertainly.

"Can I put you in some warmer clothes?" he asked, carefully not touching her.

She frowned. "I'm not wearing a bra."

Yeah, he'd noticed. Problem was, she wasn't wearing much else either, and she was shaking, and he really just wanted to get the wet polyester off her skin. Not for the first time, he'd wondered how much she'd had to drink to convince herself to put this monstrosity on in the first place.

"I won't look," he said.

She snorted. "Everyone always looks at me," she said, and his heart broke a little for the pain and disbelief at war in her voice. "Everyone says they want to help me, but they only want to fuck me."

"Nat, I …"

He didn't know what to say to that. What _could _he say to that?

She shook her head, tilting more than it might have with the force of the drug.

"Are you going to hurt me?" she asked, turning to look at him again.

"Never," he swore roughly. "I'll never hurt you, Natasha."

"Nat," she said.

He blinked. "What?"

"Nat. Call me Nat. I like it when you call me that," she said, a little more lucidly than before. "No one's ever given me a nickname before. Not a nice nickname, anyway."

And then she lifted her arms in the air, looking like a small child waiting for her mother at bedtime.

"Put me in warm clothes," she said, then raised her eyebrow, almost looking like herself again. "But no peeking."

He nodded seriously at her. "No peeking," he agreed.

He scooted behind her studiously keeping his eyes on his hands as he unzipped her dress. He kept up a monologue of his actions as he went, hoping that it would keep her calm.

"I'm going to pull this over your head now, okay?" he said once the zipper was all the way down, and she nodded. He gathered the wet fabric in his hands, helped her stand briefly to pull it over her hips, and fuck, she wasn't wearing any underwear at all. No wonder she was shaking so damn much.

She hissed when he accidentally brushed one of her ribs, and he could see the telltale signs of a nasty bruise forming there. She yelped when he experimentally touched it, wanting to make sure that it was nothing more than a bruise.

"Ouch! Stop!"

He grimaced as he pulled away. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I gotta check and see if you broke anything," he said, bringing his hand back to the spot he'd brushed and pushing lightly on her. He was relieved when she only cried out a little - if her ribs were broken, she'd be making a hell of a lot more noise when he poked at the discoloration.

He heard a sniffing sound and looked up. Shit.

"Oh, god, Nat, I'm sorry!" he said, feeling terrible for making her feel worse than she already did. He pulled his hands back from her ribs. "We're going to have to figure out if these are cracked or just bruised …" he trailed off at the doe eyed pout she gave him, the way her lower lip trembled. " … but we can put that off until the morning. When you feel better."

She nodded and swiped at her eyes.

"Hang on a sec," he said, standing up and going for his bag, digging around until he came up with a clean t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that would fit her. He turned back around to find her shaking more violently, looking forlorn and a little lost with her arms folded over her chest.

"You okay?" he asked quietly, moving closer.

She started to nod, but stopped midway. "I don't understand …" she said.

"C'mon, let's stand up," he said, then asked, "Don't understand what?"

She stood shakily, still keeping one arm pressed across her chest, even as she dropped her other hand to his shoulder to balance herself. She was leaning too heavily on him, though, much more heavily than she should be, and he could tell that she hadn't really metabolized the drug yet.

"Where am I?" she asked as he helped her step into the sweatpants. From there, it was a quick job to cinch the waist and help her back to a seated position on the bed.

"We're at my hotel," he said. "It was closer, and you were …" He trailed off, not really wanting to get into any of that right now. He was just glad that he'd gotten to her before something happened, that he'd realized that something was wrong and he'd gone looking for her. He couldn't wait until this whole stupid job was over and that fucking weasel paid for what he'd done.

He shook off the sudden, overwhelming rage that bubbled up inside of him. More important matters at hand, he grabbed the shirt he'd brought over.

She shook her head when he tried to move her arm away from her breasts, his earlier promise apparently forgotten.

"I need you to move your arm if I'm going to get this shirt on you," he said lowly.

"I don't want you to look," she said, not meeting his eyes, and he didn't understand her shyness because he'd seen her naked before. Then again, the drug was clearly affecting her pretty hard.

"I won't, I promised, remember?"

Her face crumpled, and she dropped her head into her hands. "Why can't I think straight?" she sobbed. "What's wrong with my head?" She sounded desperate, panicked.

He dropped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her against him, hugging her as best he could from the awkward angle.

"It's okay, Nat," he said. "It'll wear off."

She turned her face into the side of his neck, and he could feel a few hot tears land on his shirt. "I just want to feel like me," she moaned.

"You will," he said, bringing his hand up to her head and running his palm over her hair. He held her quietly for a while, resisting the urge to rock her, knowing that she might not react well to the motion.

She sniffed after a while, and he felt her shoulders still under his arm.

"So," he started. "How about that shirt now?"

She did lean back then, let him pull the shirt on over her head, tug her arms through the holes, and when he was done, he helped her shift backward, helped her move up the bed until she was at the head of it. He reached under her, pulled the blanket up on top of her, and he was about to get up when her hand shot out and clutched his wrist.

"Nat?" he asked quizzically.

"Stay," she said. Her eyes were closed, but he knew she was still awake. "Don't go."

His heart stopped for a minute, and feeling like all the air had been sucked out of the room, he said, "Okay."

He slid into the bed with her, trying to keep some distance between them, but Natasha didn't let him. She shimmied over to him the moment he was under the covers, wrapping herself around him, throwing her leg over and in between his, her arm across his chest.

He could feel her growing warmer by the second, her skin heating up where it came into contact with his, and even though he knew it could be awkward in the morning when she was herself again, he wouldn't regret climbing in here with her.

"Thanks for not putting the moves on," she said, and he knew she meant it, could feel_Natasha _behind those words. He hoped like hell she would be back to herself after she slept. He didn't think he could handle much more of this, more of her looking and feeling and acting so damn helpless. It wasn't her.

"Nothing I haven't seen before," he said because he didn't know how to say the other things, wasn't sure they would be well received anyway.

"In your dreams," she mumbled teasingly into the side of his chest, and his heart skipped a beat.

"I sincerely hope so," he muttered back. He kissed the top of her head.


	4. Chapter 3

_Thanks to everyone for sticking with me on this so far! I appreciate you all so much! _

_Oh, and for those of you playing at home, there are two more chapters and a short epilogue to go after this. Hope you enjoy!_

* * *

She woke up with a headache the size of the Lower East Side, groaning as she rolled over.

Or, rather, she _tried_ to roll over because the first thing she noticed after she determined that the world hated her was that there was someone else in the bed with her.

She looked down, carefully peeking at the arm wrapped securely around her waist.

That most definitely was Clint's arm. She screwed her eyes shut.

_Oh, fuck_, she thought.

When she worked up the courage to open her eyes again, she noted that she appeared to be fully clothed (though not in her own clothing), and when she twisted her neck around to look behind her, she found Clint fast asleep, wearing his clothes from yesterday. Drooling and snoring, to be sure, but wearing his clothing from yesterday.

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, unsure whether she was glad or disappointed that nothing had apparently happened.

She frowned. _Had_ anything happened? She wasn't in her bed back at the SHIELD apartment, but rather the motel Clint was calling home for the duration. She wasn't wearing her clothes, and she thought she would remember it if she took her dress off …

Come to think of it, she didn't remember much of anything at all from last night, not after she'd arrived at the party. She remembered picking out that tacky dress, she remembered getting there, she remembered …

Handsy Mark offering to get her a drink.

_Seriously?_ she thought. _At a _work_ function?_

She was going to kill that motherfucker when this was over. With an axe. Or a spoon. Better still, with her goddamn hands because there was no way in hell she was going to let someone drug her and live to see another day. Oh, she was going to make him pay, she was going to tear him apart, bit by slimy bit, she was …

She felt something twitch against her ass.

A very substantial something.

_Oh, my,_ she thought. _Was that …?_

She wriggled, and he wriggled right back and that most _definitely _was what she thought it was. He must have still been sleeping though because instead of springing back, mortified like she knew he would if he were truly aware of the situation, his arm clenched more tightly around her waist, and he ground his erection against her ass.

She was going to need a handful of painkillers and a gigantic coffee before she could properly process this situation.

"Clint?" she said, wincing at the timbre of her voice. She cleared her throat, trying again when he didn't respond. "Hey, uh, Clint?"

"Mrmffrg," he said.

And then his hand dropped down toward the bed, splaying across her belly, and she found herself even closer to him.

This was getting ridiculous.

She elbowed him a little.

"Clint," she said, louder this time. She felt him start awake, mumbling something else incoherently in her ear.

She also could feel the exact moment he realized where he was and what he was doing.

"Oh, fuck me," he said, drawing away from her quickly. She rolled over, turned to face him where he lay on his back, the same hand that had just now been touching her pressed firmly over his eyes.

"There's no point, I suppose," he said, "in pretending that you didn't notice that?"

She couldn't stop the huff of laughter that escaped at that, even though it rang through her head and made her wince.

"Yeah, no chance of that," she said. Feeling sorry for her obviously embarrassed partner, she changed the topic. "You mind telling me how I ended up here?"

He looked like he wanted to say a number of things, but all that came out was, "Um …"

She sighed. "Tell me over breakfast?" she asked.

Nodding gratefully, he bolted for the bathroom.

Men.

She waited until the shower started up before she moved, wanting to make sure she was totally alone before risking movement. She'd felt like this before, and the aches in her body didn't presage anything good. She winced when she sat up, the pain in her ribs only exacerbated by the throbbing in her skull.

"Fuck," she muttered, dropping her head into her hands, but the motion just caused a shooting pain to jolt up her side. What the hell happened last night?

She managed to choke down a few painkillers and shuffle over to the small table in the kitchenette by the time Clint got out of the shower.

"Hey," he said, steam spilling out of the door behind him. "How're your ribs?"

He was in nothing but a pair of drawstring pants as he ran a towel over his hair, and she hoped her interest in the play of muscle under his damp skin wasn't obvious.

She remembered not to shrug just in time. "Not too bad," she said instead. "Took something to cut the pain."

He nodded, tossing the towel backward into the bathroom, and he sauntered over to the kitchenette to dig around in the fridge.

"I don't have much," he said, "but there's eggs, if you want. And coffee."

She smiled. "That'd be great."

"How do you want them? I make a mean sunny side up …"

He told her about the night before while he cooked for her, and she was grateful that he told her the story from the other side of the room. She wasn't sure that she could have handled the whole thing if he'd been staring at her. Hell, she wasn't sure how well she was handling it even without him looking at her.

When Clint finished, he moved seamlessly on to other topics, like how they were going to have to step up their timetable now. In between all of it, he handed her parts of her breakfast, first a glass of juice, then a mug of steaming coffee.

"Hey, Clint?" she asked as he brought two plates to the tiny table. She took a swallow of her juice to steady her voice.

"Yeah?" he said, turning a glance in her direction, but still very much focused on the heap of food in front of him. She was glad; that would make this easier.

"Thanks," she said.

He looked up at her, brow furrowed. "For what?" he asked, like he couldn't fathom what she was thanking him for, like he had no idea that what he'd done for her last night, had no idea what it meant to her.

"For … just … for being there last night," she said quietly, inspecting her glass carefully now that he was looking at her. "For having my back."

She could see the soft smile on his face out of the corner of her eyes, could see him staring at her like she was something special when he said, "Always."

He reached out, put his big hand over hers, warming her skin, and she wanted to fall into him suddenly, wanted him to wrap those hands around her, wanted to feel his callouses rough on her skin, his fingers digging into her flesh. She wanted him to …

Oh, wait. No, that wasn't it at all. It wasn't that she wanted him to do something. She wanted him.

She _wanted _him.

All of him.

Not just his body, but his stupid smile when he thought he was being funny, and the way he would tell her ridiculous jokes over the comms when watching her from a distance. She wanted to go to sleep beside him, to wake up in his arms like she had today. She just wanted _him._

That was … not as much of a revelation as it could have been.

She turned her palm over, grasping his hand between hers. Without thinking about it too much, she bent down and dropped her lips onto the center of his palm, kissing him gently. He started at the contact, and she felt the way he was forcing himself not to move. When she looked up, she caught him staring at her with half a dopey grin on his face.

"Thank you," she said again, sincerely.

He nodded, finally closing his mouth and swallowing hard before he spoke. "Any time, red."

* * *

By the time they'd finished going over the new plans and had electronically submitted the paperwork to Coulson, it was past noon.

Clint's stomach rumbled, reminding him that they hadn't eaten in awhile.

"Sounds dire," Natasha said dryly, pushing back from the table. He didn't fail to notice the wince she tried to cover up. She hadn't taken a second dose yet, and he knew she had to be hurting.

He nodded. "Matter of life and death, really," he said, mentally cataloging the food he had in this place as he grabbed the bottle of painkillers. He handed them to Natasha along with a small cup of water that she took gratefully.

"How are you holding up?" he asked.

She stood up, gingerly moving her torso back and forth. "I'll live," she said.

"Think they're cracked?" he asked. If they were, there was no way she could finish this assignment, not if this place turned out to be HYDRA front like they expected. He didn't think they were, not after inspecting them last night, but she would know better than he did.

She shook her head. "No, doesn't hurt badly enough. Just bruised a little."

He nodded, trusting that she would tell him if she were more injured.

"So what've you got to eat?" she asked, changing the subject.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Just the eggs and coffee, and I'm out of the former, I'm afraid. Haven't gone for a grocery run in a couple."

She rolled her eyes, then headed over to the other room, picking up her ruined dress and heels. "Well, come on then."

"Come on where?"

"You're taking me back to my place so I can change," she said.

"Oh," he said, rummaging through his suitcase for a t-shirt and trying not to sound disappointed. Spending the day with her had been wonderful, even if it was spent neck deep in paperwork. He'd forgotten how much he enjoyed her company, forgotten how well they got along. He'd missed her, and he realized that he'd been hoping to spend the rest of the day with her, if not the weekend. He supposed that's what he got for hoping, though.

And then she added, "And then you're going to take me to the nearest big box for food and a movie."

His back to her, he grinned widely. "Sure thing, Nat."

* * *

True to his word, Clint drove her back to her place and waited in the tiny living room of the apartment SHIELD had set her up in. It wasn't a bad place for its size, a hell of a lot nicer than a lot of the places they'd placed in her over the years. Really, all she needed was a place to shower at the end of the day, and the little two room apartment was more than enough for that.

"You okay to wait so I can get a shower?" Her hair felt stiff in places, and she was certain she didn't exactly smell fresh. Clint hadn't - wouldn't - comment on that, though, but she wanted to wash the remnants of last night off once and for good. Clint just settled down onto her couch with a nod and a wave.

She turned on the shower, letting it heat to scalding while she stripped down in front of the mirror. She grimaced when she caught sight of the bruising along her ribs. It was worse than she thought, even if the pain wasn't bothering her too much any more. She downed another pill though, just to be safe.

She tried to hurry her shower along, even though the water felt heavenly as it streamed down her body, loosening up spots she hadn't realized were stiff. Washing her hair proved doable, if difficult, and when she stepped out of the stall, she was almost feeling human again.

Heading back into her bedroom, she rifled through her clothes, feeling uncharacteristically self conscious. Clint had seen her at her worst, why the hell was she suddenly worried about what she was going to wear to go shopping of all things?

_Because you want to look good in front of your partner,_ she thought.

She rolled her eyes at herself and reached for a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.

She managed to dress herself with a minimal amount of discomfort, and when she came back out, she found Clint leafing through one of the many home magazines she'd bought as a decoy in case she invited anyone over.

Seemingly knowing that she hadn't purchased the title out of genuine interest, Clint tossed the magazine down when she came back out. "Do people really read that stuff?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Only the normal ones."

"Well," he said, standing, stretching and giving her an entirely too interesting view of the thatch of hair that led down under the waist of his pants. "That'll never be us."

"I'm okay with that," she said and ushered him out the door.

* * *

They ended up at the local WalMart. She'd long since given up trying to avoid the place in small towns in America - the chain had driven out almost all other business to the point that you couldn't get much of anything at a physical store unless you shopped there.

She let Clint push the cart when they were inside, glad to let him take over. Her ribs were feeling better, so she was sure there was no serious damage, but she was happy for the chance to rest anyway.

"I'm going to grab some cereal," she said when he turned the cart toward the refrigerator section. "Can you get me some more orange juice?"

He nodded. "You want almond milk, too, right?"

Something fuzzy landed in her heart then, a pleasant little ache that was gratified that he'd paid enough attention to her eating habits to know something like that.

She wandered away with instructions to grab "something with too much sugar in it" (because Barton was an actual teenager). She was debating whether to grab herself a box of Cheerios or Grape-Nuts when a familiar voice rang out behind her.

"Rosie! Hey!"

She turned to find Sally coming down the aisle at her, one of her kids walking beside her with his nose in a book and the other nowhere to be seen.

"Fancy running into you here, Rose!" she said, smiling brightly at Natasha.

"How are you?" she asked politely, deciding on Grape-Nuts and sliding the Cheerios back onto the shelf. She liked the crunch.

"Oh, good, good. Me and Beth were wondering where you'd gotten off to last night," Sally said, wasting no time in cutting to the chase. She turned away for a moment to tell her youngest to put the box of Poptarts back. "Saw you talking with Creepy Mark, though."

Natasha shrugged, not really wanting to talk about the incident with Mark. The fewer people who knew about that, the better. She was willing to wait until they were done to expose that asshole for what he was.

Sally, mistaking her reticence for something else, blinked rapidly at her, looking for all the world like a fish. "You didn't go home with Creepy Mark, did you?"

She laughed at the unexpected absurdity. "Oh! No! No, I didn't," she said, waving her hands rapidly in front of her. "No."

Clint chose that moment to round the corner with his cart.

"Hey, did you want the regular juice or the kind with extra pulp?" he asked, before he noticed who she was talking to. She sighed internally. Guess they would have to revise those plans again to include a semi-serious relationship. Good thing he hadn't used her name, at least.

She smiled a little too brightly at him, hoping he got the message to say as little as possible and to let her talk their way out of it.

"Oh!" Sally said, turning an appraising eye Natasha's way. "I didn't realize you had company, Rose!"

"Hey, Sal," Clint said, stopping the shopping cart next to them. "How's it going?"

The three exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, with both of them complimenting Sally for the refreshments at the party. Eventually Sally's children grew tired of waiting around, and they dragged her off to finish their shopping.

"That was interesting," Clint noted as they headed toward the electronics department. "We're going to have to change our plans again, aren't we?"

She let out an exasperated spy, exhaling in a huff. "Well, there goes our Sunday," she said, imagining all the paperwork they were going to need to refile.

He shook his head ruefully. "Coulson's going to pitch a fit."

"You'll just have to explain it from our perspective."

"Me?" he asked incredulously. "Why me? He likes you better."

She smirked, then coughed theatrically and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. "I'm injured."

He rolled his eyes and pushed the cart ahead.

* * *

They'd argued over what movie to watch for a good ten minutes. Clint wanted to see_Die Hard_ ("We've seen that movie, like, at least a dozen times!" "And you loved every minute of it."), but Natasha was pushing for _Planet of the Apes_ ("Charlton Heston is the worst, Nat." "But monkeys."). Somehow, they settled on _Predator_, agreeing that brainless entertainment was in order for the evening.

They ended up back at his place, curled up on the bed after dinner and sharing a bag of popcorn while Schwarzenegger fought an alien. By the time the credits rolled, she was leaning against him, relaxing with his arm wrapped companionably around her shoulders. It felt good. Damn good, if he were honest, and he hoped he didn't say anything to fuck it up.

He reached over to the side table for the remote, flicking off the tv and hoping like hell that she still wanted to stick around after the movie. The only light source was from the small lamp by the window, which cast strange, uneven shadows in the room.

"I'm really not looking forward to going back to that dump on Monday," she said quietly against his chest, so quietly that he thought for a moment that he'd just imagined it. When he turned to look down at her though, her eyes were glittering in the dim light as she stared up at him. He felt a surge of protectiveness wash through him, one that she would probably slug him for were he ever stupid enough to express it aloud.

He reached out to her face, running his forefinger along the length of her jaw. She leaned into his touch, closed her eyes, and he swore his stupid heart stopped for moment.

"I don't want to go back there, I don't want to pretend that I have no idea what that bastard did, I don't want to do this," she said. "Fuck, Clint. Sometimes I really fucking hate this job."

She pressed her face against the side of his neck, and his hand moved of its own accord to cup the back of her head, to hold her while she shook. She didn't cry, not like he might have expected from someone else, but he could tell that she was deeply affected by what had happened, that she was remembering all those times she hadn't been in control of her own body, knew what that meant to her.

"If it means anything, I'll be there," he said into her hair. "I'll be watching your back."

She made a strange, choking noise, and it took him several minutes to realize that she was laughing.

Rocking her lightly in his embrace, he said, "I'm that funny, am I?"

He felt her shake her head, and then she pulled back to look him in the eye. "No, it's not that. It's just … It does. Make a difference, I mean."

"Good," he said, and then her hands were on his face and his were tangled in her hair, and he wasn't sure where this was going except that her cheeks were kind of flushed and she was a little out of breath and then …

Holy shit, Natasha Romanoff was kissing him.

He didn't have the first clue where to put his hands, didn't know what he was supposed to do at all, really, because he'd been thinking about doing this, really doing this, with no excuses or interruptions for too long. Now that he was faced with the reality, it turned out that he had far too many options to choose between, and he stalled with indecision. He wanted to touch her tenderly, cup her face, and skim his hands so lightly over her skin that she shivered. He wanted to grasp at her hips, tug her so close that he could feel her heat through his pants. He wanted to touch her everywhere, wanted to feel her so badly that he just forgot how to do any of that, almost even forgot how to breathe, and he just sat there, perfectly still while she pressed her lips against his.

Eventually, she drew away.

"Sorry," she said, as if she'd somehow wronged him, as if she'd violated some unwritten rule between them. "I thought …"

"Yes!" he said too forcefully, and his voice sounding like a desperate squawk.

She blinked once at him, slowly like a cat. "What?"

He reached out blindly, grabbing her hand, needing to hold on to her for this because he sure as hell didn't want her to get the impression that he wanted her to go. Christ, why the hell did he feel like a damn virgin all of a sudden?

He swallowed.

"You turn me into an idiot," he said plainly, because what else was he supposed to say? And maybe that was the right thing at that moment because a grin peeked its way around the edges of Natasha's face until it blossomed fully on her features, and her gladness, her complete joy would have shone forth unfettered except that she was in his lap right then, kissing him again, and _holy shit, he was kissing Natasha Romanoff_.

She tasted like popcorn and Natasha, and he'd never sampled anything better in his life. Her tongue moved restlessly against his, running along his teeth, along the edges of his mouth, and when she sucked his lower lip into her mouth, it was like he'd died and gone to heaven.

He felt her suck in her breath when his hands brushed along her middle, but whether it was from pain or arousal, he didn't know. Though it ached to do it, he pulled back to look at her.

"You okay?" he asked.

She just grinned slyly and kissed him again.


	5. Chapter 4

_Thanks again to all the wonderful people for reading and reviewing and favoriting and just generally being awesome. Thanks so much!_

_One more chapter and an epilogue to go! _

* * *

She could get used to this.

What had started innocuously enough as cuddling and a brush of her lips against his had turned into something a lot more interesting now that she was in his lap and he was trying to catalog the contours of her skin with his tongue.

He'd already tasted her lips, had moved along her jaw, and now he was working his way down her neck. She could hardly catch her breath, and she didn't think it was because of her ribs.

"Tell me this is real," he muttered against her throat, the silken rumble of his words traveling down her body, settling deep in her gut and making her squirm. She knew how he felt, needed the same reassurance that the firm heat of his body between her legs wasn't going to slip away. He wasn't going to leave her alone in her bed in the middle of the night, gasping awake with his name on her lips in the dark.

She tugged on his hair, pulled his head backward until he met her eyes, and they were close enough that she could see her outline reflected in his irises.

"This better be fucking real," she said. "Because I'm tired of masturbating to thoughts of you."

His pupils widened alongside his gasp for air, and he practically growled at her, flipping her suddenly onto her back and kissing her so deeply she thought she might meld with him.

"Christ, woman," he ground out against her throat. "I'm going to make you come so hard you forget your name."

She thought that she should be amused by his words; she was no blushing virgin, and what he'd just said was trite. Or, it should be, and she should be stifling her laughter or disbelieving him at the very least, but she was already so wet for him, so eager to have him hot and heavy between her thighs that she couldn't think straight. She bit her lip and whimpered by way of reply, wrapping her legs tightly around his waist and grinding up against his core.

"Do you know how long I've wanted you?" he asked, and it had to be rhetorical because there never was a time when she didn't want him. "Do you know how much I want you?"

She'd heard those words too, a hundred times from a hundred men, but none of them were Clint, none of them looked at her like she was a person, none of them knew a damn thing about her beyond her pseudonym and that she filled out a dress well.

But Clint? Well, fuck. Clint knew everything about her. He knew how many people she'd killed, knew that she thought rifles were clumsy, and that pesto and sausage were among her least favorite foods, but she would eat both anyway. He knew that her right hook was weaker than her left, and he'd helped her stop telegraphing when she was about to go for the former. He'd carried her out of a burning building, he'd sewed her skin closed in a dozen safehouses, and more to the point, he'd accepted all of the same from her without so much as a blink.

She'd never been anything but an equal in his eyes, she'd never been just the girl who looked good in a dress, and so when he stared up at her, met her eyes as he inched her t-shirt up over her stomach, she wasn't thinking about how idiotic he sounded or that he was feeding her a line just to see if he could get her naked. He wasn't. He meant it, all of it, and she knew it.

This was _Clint_, and she'd been thinking about doing this ever since she'd met him, and now that the moment was upon her, she wanted to swim in the heady sensation of finally, _finally_ getting to act on her desires.

"Please," she said at last, whispering as if afraid to break whatever spell had fallen over them. She lifted herself off the bed, sat up and came to her knees to help him pull her shirt off, and the carnal promise in his eyes when he caught sight of her in the plain, sturdy bra she'd picked out earlier, never intending for something like this to happen - that fire in his eyes made her sure that she'd made the right decision, that this was the best idea she'd had in years. Maybe ever.

He cupped her breasts through the plain fabric, looking for all the world like a kid in a candy store, boyish and young and maybe love was for children, but whatever she was feeling right now wasn't too far removed.

His fingers drifted along her sides, swept around her back, twin firebrands on her flesh, and when he hesitated at the clasp of her bra, she turned her face upward.

"Can I?" he asked haltingly, and she grinned at the incongruity of Clint stopping to ask permission with his hands hot on her back as she panted.

"I'd be really fucking upset if you didn't," she said.

He returned her grin, smiling at her so openly and candidly that her breath caught in her throat. She felt herself heat up under his gaze, could feel her face burning from the force of her words. He leaned forward, pulling her into his lap, and he kissed the bridge of her nose.

"You're beautiful," he said, and did all the air suddenly escape the room?

Her bra slackened, then it was gone, and he bent to draw one aroused tip into his mouth.

"Fuck everything," she gasped, her voice a foreign, rough thing. He chuckled against her.

"Just you, I hope," he said, and then he went back to work, sliding his hands down her sides, along her waist as he sucked on her skin, leaving a strange, dotted pattern of red marks alongside her bruises that she'd be hard pressed to explain away.

Without warning, he fell backward, taking her with him, and she should feel awkward, sprawled across her partner's body, kissing him like this after they've been colleagues and friends for so long, but instead she was just tingling all over, a pleasant buzz overriding her better judgment.

She let that feeling overwhelm her, let it turn her brain off, and she just operated on raw emotion, on want and desire, and she ran her hands up his arms, grasping at him through his button down, trying to feel the ropes of muscles she knew lay beneath.

"Wanna touch you," she said in between nips, and her hands moved to his chest, fumbling with the buttons there. "Need to get this off."

"Well," he said, breaking their kiss. "All you had to do was ask."

He brushed her hands away, taking over her task, but he grew quickly frustrated. He tugged the shirt open at last, and she heard the telltale pinging of the plastic buttons as they struck the floor. They struggled together then, making short work of the cuffs and tossing the shirt away, and then she tugged his undershirt off over his head and he was bare from the waist up, the same as she.

Fulfilling a long-standing fantasy, she ran her hands over his abdomen, up his chest, across his pectorals and shoulders, clutching at him, touching him, and growing wetter by the second. She was so distracted by the sight below her that she barely even noticed that he'd shifted, only coming back to herself when he sucked one of her nipples into his mouth, biting down lightly and sending a jolt of pleasure through her body.

"Yes," she moaned, drawing the syllable out and clawing at him. He bucked up against her, thrusting his pelvis against hers, and he was hard enough that she could feel what could only be his cock through the fabric of his jeans.

He rolled her once more, pushing her down on her back, but he kept up the gentle suction on her breast, reaching up with his left hand to tease her other peak to attention.

"What are you doing to me?" she moaned rhetorically, not really expecting a reply, but neither wholly surprised when he let her fall from his mouth and looked up at her.

"Making you come, remember?" he asked, and then he was pushing her down onto her back and sliding down her body, licking a trail between her breasts, across the plane of her abdomen and lower. He ran his nose lightly across her belly, licking at her navel to distract her as he undid the button on her jeans.

"Lift up," he ordered, smacking at her hips, and the light sting was enough to snap her back to reality, however briefly. She raised her hips, and he stripped her, shucking the skin tight denim and the soaked scrap of lace that dared call itself underwear in one fell swoop.

He leaned back in, dropping his forehead to her stomach and groaning, and for a moment, she thought something was wrong, that she'd forgotten something or somehow missed a nonverbal cue, but then he said, "I can fucking smell you, woman."

He growled the words, and the rough timbre to his voice spoke to how aroused he was, how turned on he was at that moment, and it was the sole warning she got before he sprang into action, shoving her thighs wide apart and going straight for her pussy.

She shrieked as he dragged his mouth along the length of her slit, lathing her flesh with the dual roughness of his tongue and the day's growth of stubble on his chin. When he might have pushed back, might have interpreted her noise as something it most definitely was not, she grabbed his head, threading her fingers through the short tufts of his hair to hold him against her, to encourage him to keep it up.

She felt him grin as he got the message, and then his mouth found her clit and she forgot how to think. He sucked on her, swirling his tongue impossibly over the surface of the sensitive nub, and if she thought she had been close to orgasm before, it was nothing compared to when he slipped two fingers into her and started pumping.

She rode his face, fucking herself on his talented mouth, and had she known he was capable of this, she would have accosted him long ago. He snaked the hand that wasn't buried in her cunt up her body to grab at her tit, rolling her nipple between his fingers, and fuck it all if he wasn't making good on that promise about making her forget her name.

He made a humming noise against her at last, adding another finger and stretching her wider, and then he drew his teeth lightly over her clit and she was lost, exploding, shattering into a thousand pieces, a puddle beneath his fingers.

She looked down her body when she came back to herself, finding him grinning widely up at her from between her legs, her moisture glistening all over his mouth.

She must have said something, must have shouted something when she came because there was no way that he'd be grinning that widely otherwise.

He confirmed as much when he said, "No, not God. Just Clint."

She swatted at him, then changed the gesture, grabbing at his shoulders to tug him up the bed and closer to her. "C'mere, you asshole," she said, pulling him in for a kiss.

The taste of her pussy on his tongue was strangely arousing, making her want him with a sudden fierceness. She sucked all the traces of herself from his mouth, loving the way they tasted together and wanting more, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, rubbing herself against him, arching her back and squeezing him with her thighs. She could feel his arousal better now, more clearly that they only had his jeans between them, but she wanted more still, wanted _him_.

"I need you to fuck me," she said, her voice dangerously close to pleading. "Please fuck me now."

His eyes darkened in response, his pupils dilating as he kissed her again, keeping his eyes open to stare at her up close. The gesture should have been awkward, and, realistically, _was_ awkward, but she couldn't tear herself away, couldn't bring herself to break that tenuous connection between them.

She dropped her legs open, releasing him from the embrace so she could get her hands between them, so she could work at his belt. He sucked in his breath harshly with her success, when she reached into his pants to free him, when she cupped his cock in her hands.

Putting all his weight on one elbow, he reached down to stop her sure movements.

"I don't think you want to do that right now, darlin'," he said, his stupid pet name not seeming quite as awful as it usually did. "Fucking you with my tongue got me dangerously close to losing it."

She grinned at his rueful confession, feeling powerful at the obvious control she had over the situation despite their positions.

"If you're that close," she said from beneath hooded eyes, "then I guess we'd better not put off the main event."

He closed his eyes for a moment, turning his head away from her, and she could see the vein in his neck strain as he struggled for control. Feeling feisty, she pushed up on her elbows to get closer to him, and then she licked the side of his neck, bit his earlobe.

"Goddamn it, Tash," he cursed. "You drive me insane. I think I could come just from that."

The need that caused his voice to hitch overrode her senses, and she all she wanted was to hear that sound again, to make him lose control on top of her. Reaching back between their bodies, unwilling to take no for an answer, she briefly dipped her hand between her legs for lubrication, then grabbed his cock again, pumping him firmly in her grip.

"That's the idea," she said, fluttering her lashes delicately. He put up a modicum of resistance, trying to pull her hand away, but she'd just gripped tighter around him, reached her other hand down to cup his balls, and when she ran the pad of her foot up the length of his leg, he gave up pretending, just thrust into her palms, let her jerk him off.

He let out of low moan eventually, a strangled sound that she'd never heard from him, and the snap of his hips became erratic, uneven and harsh, and then his hand clamped down over hers so tightly she thought he might sprain her wrist. His forehead dropped down to her shoulder, he cried out, half-laying on her as he shook. He came in hot spurts across her belly, the thick threads of his come splattering up her torso and onto her tits, and fuck, he was gorgeous when he came.

He rolled onto his back beside her, breathing deeply with one arm draped over his eyes, and it took several minutes before he managed, "Jesus Christ, Natasha. I think you broke me."

Swiping a stray sock from where it lay on the bed, she carefully wiped herself clean before curling into his side. Even if he was broken, her skin was still humming, and she wanted him desperately. She wondered how much it would take to get him ready again, wondered what she would need to do to incite his interest.

So she asked him.

"How long will it take for you to be ready for another round?" she asked, her voice hoarse in the still air of the apartment.

Turning his head, he peered at her with one eye, raking his gaze down her body. She saw him stir out of the corner of her eye.

"With you sitting there, looking like that," he said, "Not very long at all."

Feeling strangely shy, she glanced downward to where his cock lay against his thigh. "You mind if I . . .?" she asked, tilting her head toward his pelvis.

He laughed. "You can do whatever the hell you want," he said.

She laughed back, liking the change in the mood, liking the laughter and levity between them, liking the way that this felt so natural, that when she took him gently in her palm and licked him clean that it didn't feel weird or artificial, that she didn't have to rely on any of the training she'd undergone in Russia, that she could just do the things she wanted to do and it would be enough.

He was already half-hard by the time she was done, and the interested gleam was back in his eye, so when he put his hands on her and ordered her onto her hands and knees, she went willingly enough. She rested her weight carefully forward onto her palms, trying not to trigger the pain in her ribs. Strangely, it seemed to work.

He knelt behind her, caressing her ass, and she'd wondered what he was doing until she felt him part her ass cheeks. He stroked her pussy once, twice, and again, waiting until she was mewling to thrust his thumb inside of her.

"You're so fucking wet, Natasha," he said, practically growling at her, and she pushed back against him, wanting more than just his thumb, wanting his cock instead, wanting him to stretch her wide and fuck her in half.

"Wet for you," she said, and his hand was in her hair, pulling her upright until her shoulders rested against him, and then she felt him against her ass, felt his cock rejoin the party.

"I'm gonna fuck you raw, baby," he said, and she was hot enough, ready enough that she didn't mind the name, and her hands flew to his forearm where it was latched firmly across her abdomen.

She could feel him positioning himself, jostling her into position, rubbing his cock against the mouth of her pussy, teasing her clit with its head. She felt him at her entrance, felt his fingers guiding him in, and he was right there, and oh _God_, she wanted him so badly. She couldn't remember a time when she hadn't wanted him and she was so wet and so ready and fucking Christ, why the fuck wasn't he inside of her?

"Shit, shit, shit!" he exclaimed, stilling his movements. She clawed at him, his arms, reaching between her legs for his cock, too far gone at this moment to think of anything but wedging that beautiful thing inside of her.

Through the haze of her arousal, she dimly heard him ask her something, but she couldn't focus at first, didn't understand his words until he repeated them.

"Please tell me you have a condom," he said.

Oh.

"You don't need . . ." she sputtered, then tried again. "You're clean, right?" she asked, even though she knew the answer. She'd read his file, the same as she knew he'd read hers, and there wasn't a whole hell of a lot she didn't know about her partner. As of his last medical checkup, he was as clean as she was, and SHIELD didn't really take chances with its members.

"Yes," he said. His voice was choked, almost as if he didn't believe the conversation that they were having, as if he didn't believe they were really contemplating what they were about to do.

"Then you don't need one," she said, and she felt him still.

"You sure?"

She swallowed, overcome with the important of the moment, and she lost her voice, forgot how to speak. She nodded, bobbing her head against his shoulder. He tilted her forward and then, _oh_, then, he was inside of her, skin against skin, hot and thick and twitching and _fuck_.

If she'd entertained the notion that she was going to get out of this without shouting herself hoarse, that was banished the moment that he began to move. He filled her so perfectly, so fully, and the stretch was tight around the edges because no matter how much she played the femme fatale, she didn't really get out that much, didn't find the need to connect with other humans in that way. She was a loner, like Clint, and that seemed to make this all the more meaningful.

She'd never felt this before, the intense heat, the irrational, animalistic hunger that burned between them, and as he sank his teeth down into her neck, marking her, she knew that he was riding the same wavelength she was.

His hands were everywhere as he pounded into her, grasping her breasts, slipping down to her clit, ghosting over her stomach and pressing into the crease of her thighs. He was an assault on her senses, taking over every part of her, rewriting her, and she _liked it_.

She pushed away from him at that thought, upset at herself, but not so upset that she didn't shove him down onto his back and mount him, sliding down onto his cock with nearly no resistance. It was better this way, too, the new angle hitting her differently, and when he planted his feet and thrust upward, she swore she could feel him hitting the backs of her teeth.

"Oh, fuck!" she shouted, past the point of caring that she sounded like an imbecile because really, who would he tell? He used his hands to lift her off him, almost to the point that he fell out of her, and then he dropped her back down, impaling her on him, and she could feel herself start to coil up, to twist and tighten in that low place next to her spine.

"Tell me what you want," he said, gritting the words out from behind clenched teeth. He clearly had as tenuous a grip on reality as she.

She braced her hands on his arms, his glorious fucking beautiful arms, squeezing them as he repeated his earlier action, delighting in the way the muscles flexed underneath her hands.

She'd never been loud before, not like this, but she couldn't hold herself back, and it took a few tries before she managed to say, "Fuck me harder, baby."

It wasn't until she noticed the curious grin on his face, that cocksure one he wore whenever he'd made an impossible shot or completed a job ahead of schedule, that she realized what she'd called him. By then it didn't matter, though, because he'd flipped her onto her back, hooked one of her knees up over his elbow, and he was thrusting into her with all of his considerable strength, trusting her enough to know her own limits as he pounded her down into the mattress.

She grew tighter and hotter with each sure stroke, his pelvis smacking against hers as she tensed. She'd never been so turned on, never had wanted someone to fuck her like this, and now that she'd had it, she was sure that anything, any_one_ else would pale in comparison.

"Let me feel you come," he said, his face red with the strain of keeping up his pace without erupting inside of her, and she really liked that she could drive him to this, that she could make him sweat and strain a second time, that he still wanted her after he'd already had her.

She reached her hand between them to finger herself, and she was off at the first touch, pulsing around him, gushing as she came.

"Oh, fuck, yes," he moaned, losing his rhythm. "I love that you're so wet for me."

She reached up and pulled on his shoulder, readjusting her leg so he could fall flush against her, and she kissed him, crashed her open mouth to his, swallowing his curses and his cries as he rocked into her, holding nothing back.

At last, she swiveled her hips, ground against him, and it was enough. She felt him come, felt the curious rippling sensation of his orgasm, and she bit down lightly on the crook of his neck, dragging her teeth over him, marking him as hers.

That thought gave her pause as they lay together, their bodies cooling. Hers? She wasn't sure where her brain was going with that notion. She wasn't his.

. . . Right?

They were quiet for a long time, and she wondered if he was thinking the same things she was, if he was wondering what the hell he'd just gotten himself into because she sure as hell didn't have the first clue.

At length, he said, "Can I just say that I really hope this wasn't a one time thing?"

She grinned. Well, they were in agreement about that at the very least. She rolled over, draped herself across his torso and turned her smile on him.

"Anytime, anywhere," she said.


	6. Chapter 5

_Thanks again to everyone who's been following along with this - I'm so happy to hear that you like this fic!_

_Just the wrap-up left after this, and it should be posted tomorrow. Enjoy!_

* * *

As it happened, "anytime" turned out to generally mean lunchtime.

"Anywhere" was a little more complicated - enthusiasm aside, there were public decency laws that had to be minded.

She was willing to admit that it was kind of nice (Clint would say "Awesome!") to work with him when they weren't under constant threat of violence. Not that walking into a war zone with him at her back wasn't her idea of a good time, just that this whole "average" thing was starting to grow on her.

Well, after a fashion.

She wouldn't be happy with it forever, not if it were her real life, of course, but the dull job was so much better with him here. It was great to go to work actually _with _him, not to part ways with him so he could watch her back from afar. When they met up (she had a hard time saying "rendezvoused" without laughing, especially in light of recent developments), instead of slipping off to a clandestine safehouse, they could be open about what they were doing and where they were going. It was nice not to hide.

Oh, and the sex was pretty fucking awesome, too.

She couldn't recall a time in her life when she'd gotten more action, nor had more fun doing it. She'd always known that it'd be great if they ever started sleeping together. Two people didn't have a working rapport like they did and not have that carry over to other activities. Knowing that, however, and experiencing it, were two very different things.

They hadn't been able to keep their hands off each other since they'd started … whatever this was. He'd fucked her twice that morning, enthusiastically taking her in the shower and then again in the breakfast nook. They had a lunch date (such as it was) planned for today, and if the last three were anything to go by, she'd either end up with her skirt hitched up around her waist in one of the many empty offices in the building (the downturn in the economy was good for something) or they'd spend their lunch hour getting each other off in his truck. Either way, the planned debauchery of it had her squirming in her seat, and it wasn't even 10 am yet.

Sally was handling the development about as well as could be expected.

When they'd been forced to leave their self-imposed cocoon for work on Monday, Natasha had dreaded the reaction of her coworkers. She liked Sally, but the woman was a gossip; it was what had attracted Natasha to her in the first place.

As it turned out, Sally hadn't said a word, not to anyone in the office, and when Natasha had walked into the office, it was only her friend's head that turned, only Sally that waved a greeting.

That didn't stop her from asking for details when she plunked the weekly brownie down on her desk.

Natasha had surprised herself by how willing she had been to talk about it, how much she'd enjoyed telling her friend what she thought of Clint, even if it was in the guise of their covers. At the end of the day, however, Rose's feelings about Frank weren't so different from her own about Clint, and, well, she still was feeling pretty light headed and happy from the day before.

Beth had high fived her in the warehouse break room during lunch.

Mark, at least, hadn't been bothering her this past week. Her, or anyone else, actually. He hadn't shown up at work until Wednesday, and when he had, he'd been sporting a shiner the size to rival any she'd had (or given) in her day. He'd been keeping to himself, entering his office with his head down at the beginning of the day and leaving the same way in the afternoon, and she expected that the trend would continue.

Mark hadn't gone to the cops, at least, which she'd half expected after Coulson agreed that they shouldn't go themselves. Their cover identities could stand the scrutiny of the local PD, but it wouldn't do to draw attention to themselves, not when they still weren't sure if this place was a HYDRA front. She'd be more worried, except that Mark's facial bruising was sure to prevent him from trying to pull the same thing on anyone in the foreseeable future. Clint had bugged his car and apartment earlier in the week, so they would know if he tried.

That said, motherfucker was going to burn the moment she and Clint pulled out of this place.

The last was a more and more likely occurrence with each passing day. There hadn't been so much as a blip on the HYDRA radar since Clint had joined her here, and it seemed increasingly likely that they weren't going to find anything …

She paused, peered closer at her monitor, frowning. Was that … ?

"Fuck."

Of course.

* * *

"You'll never guess what I found," she said, sliding into the seat across from Clint at the cafe. He'd already ordered for her, a salad and a coffee, and she was pleased to see that he remembered the kinds of things she liked. It was a small detail (and one that she would bristle at from anyone else), but those were the sorts of things that kept you warm on lonely nights, and she would cling to every bit of it that came her way.

Clint eyed her warily, taking a bite of his own lunch, what looked to be some kind of pasta in a cream sauce.

"Snakes in the nest?" he asked, when he really meant "HYDRA?"

She nodded. They couldn't have this conversation, not here, not so close to the facility, but she wanted at least to clue him in. It was unfair and dangerous to let him go back to work without knowing the whole story.

Speaking in code (the sort of which was vague enough to be useless to the careless eavesdropper, yet still clear to people who'd worked together for as long as they had), she told him what she could, especially about who to watch out for. She would tell him the rest later, when they were alone back at one of their places.

They walked back across the street together, and though she was still on edge, it helped that he kissed her thoroughly by the elevator before heading down to the warehouse.

Yep, she had it bad.

* * *

They didn't get a chance to talk until later that night when he showed up at her house, a pizza box and six pack in tow.

"Did someone order a sausage pizza?" Clint asked when she opened the door, holding the pizza box in front of his crotch and wagging his eyebrows at her.

She rolled her eyes, motioning him inside. "Please tell me that doesn't really have sausage on it."

"Please, Nat," he snorted. "Would I do that to you?"

"Or your dick," she finished, taking the six-pack from him.

He opened the box with a flourish, and she was almost afraid to look down. Almost, but the smell that wafted up at her was wonderful, if a bit strange, and she really was hungry …

"Why the fuck is there fruit on the pizza, Barton?"

"I'll have you know that Hawaiian pizza is considered fine dining among a certain element."

"A certain batshit insane element," she countered, wandering into the kitchen to grab two glasses and some napkins. She wasn't the sort to care whether her beer was in glass when she drank it or not, but Clint swore left and right that it made a difference.

When she got back to the living room, he'd already pulled her coffee table closer to the couch, and he was sitting, obviously waiting for her. She sat beside him, and he grabbed a slice of pizza, holding it up in front of her face. She eyed it warily.

"But fruit. On the pizza. With ham."

"C'mon, you gotta try this," he said, grinning widely at her, and had she ever been able to say no to that face (she hadn't)?

Tentatively, she opened her mouth and took a bite, feeling his gaze hot on her as she chewed.

"Okay," she said grudgingly. "I might admit that your weird fruit pizza is passable."

He took a bite from the slice she'd just started. "Passable!" he exclaimed, mouth full. "More like amazing and perfect."

She rolled her eyes at him and reached for her laptop.

They talked at length over dinner about the intelligence they'd gathered in the past several days, trying to fit together pieces of a puzzle that they didn't have the original image to. It was hard work, but they were good at it.

He tucked the box with the few remaining slices in the fridge, cleaning up while she went over her files again from the day.

"I just can't quite see how it all fits together," she said when he came back into the room. "It's like everything is there, but we're missing some major piece."

"I know what you mean," he said. "There's gotta be some key part or a player that we're missing, some plan that we haven't figured out yet …"

She rubbed a hand over her eyes in frustration, collapsing backward on the couch. "I was so ready for this to be a dead end," she lamented.

She felt him throw his arm across her shoulders, and he hugged her against him.

"Yeah, I know. Me, too. But, hey, at least we'll get to bust some heads, right?"

She chuckled, then craned her neck to look up at him. "Can we go over this one more time? Just to see if we missed something?"

"Lay it on me," he said, and they both sat up. She grabbed her laptop once more and pulled up the record that had caught her attention earlier today.

"Well, there's this, for starters" she said, pointing at the screen. "Tomorrow's shipment of olives is identical to another one the company handled a little over a month ago."

"Just before I got here," he confirmed. "But aren't most of the shipments we handle virtually identical?"

She nodded. "You're not wrong, but nothing is _this _identical." She tapped the screen a few times. "Especially not with details like these."

He looked where she was pointing. "And why is a shipment of olives from California listed as an import?" he asked, echoing the question that he'd posed earlier when they'd first gone through these notes.

"And then there's the question of what happened to the guy you replaced," she said. "I did some digging on him after Sally told me that he fell during a late night delivery and broke his leg."

Clint nodded. "That's what I heard, too."

"Right, which would make sense, except that he never showed up at any of the local hospitals."

"But someone with the same height and coloring came into Memorial that night with a GSW," Clint finished for her. "And we determined that Coulson didn't pick up on this because . . ?"

"Because our esteemed handler has been a little busy with all that shit going down with Stark," she said.

"But busy enough to miss our friend in the hospital?"

She shrugged. "Apparently. You know we're it for this job. I don't think anyone else expected this lead to pan out."

Clint sighed and polished off his beer before continuing. "I still can't figure out why he sent me in."

She stared carefully at the computer screen. She'd been hoping that he wouldn't pick up on that, that he would have just assumed that Coulson wanted her to have another agent in the same building as her.

"I might have asked for backup," she said quietly.

Clint raised his eyebrows. "You? Really?"

She didn't know why she felt embarrassed about it; people asked for backup all the time. Of course, people didn't ask for backup primarily because they knew full well who would be tasked with providing that backup. She couldn't tell him that, though.

"Something about this whole operation didn't feel right right from the beginning," she said instead because it was the truth, or an approximation of it, at least. "I didn't want to have to call on Andy Griffith if HYDRA showed up."

"Oooh, classic television references!" he teased, jostling her with his shoulder, obviously trying to lighten the mood. "I didn't know they let you watch tv in Russia."

"All to make better spy," she said with a grin, playing up her old accent.

Without warning, he leaned in and kissed her, sealing his mouth against hers and stealing all of her breath.

Asshole.

"So what do you want to do?" he said as if he weren't asking two things at once. There were all sorts of things she wanted to do right now, but very few of them involved finishing their new report for Coulson.

"Nat?" Clint asked when she didn't respond.

"I think we need to be there when this new shipment comes in," she said at last. "Think you can get on the crew?"

"Shouldn't be too hard," he said. "JT likes me, and if anyone is involved in this, it's gotta be him."

"Good," she said, bending back down over the computer. "We should let Coulson know. We should get a team on standby."

"Yeah," he agreed, and she was thought she heard reluctance in his voice. He didn't say anything, didn't bring it up until after she'd sent a message to Coulson and closed her laptop.

"So," he said, leaning back next to her on the couch. "I guess we're about done here."

She definitely heard reluctance now, and she was too tired to pretend that she didn't know the source of it.

"We don't have to be," she said quickly, not daring to look at him because she was terrible at hiding her emotions from him. "If you don't want to be."

He picked up on the fact that she wasn't talking about the mission, but them, this new thing that had sprung up between them.

"I don't," he said quietly. He reached out, took her hand in his. "Do you?"

It was a stupid question, but she thought it deserved a good answer. She turned to him then, braving his eyes, and she saw all of her fears reflected there.

"No, I don't want this to be over."

He grinned at her, dropping her hands to cup her face between his palms. "I am going to kiss the shit out of you right now."

She grinned. "How does one do that, precisely, Barton? Because …"

His mouth closed over hers, silencing her teasing, and she felt herself stir. She climbed into his lap, straddling him to get a better angle as she explored his mouth. He tasted so fucking perfect, and she didn't think she'd ever get enough of this, of the way he made her feel.

His hands skimmed up her sides, sliding under her shirt, the coarse pads of his thumbs running over her stomach as he moved higher. She gasped into the air, tearing her mouth from his in an effort to get more air when he reached her breasts, and it was funny, but she never remembered being this sensitive before, never remembered being this turned on just from kissing and a bit of petting.

He did odd things to her though, made her feel strange things. Like right now, with his fingers deftly unworking the buttons on her blouse and pulling the offending fabric away, leaving her shirtless and warm, her hips moving restlessly in his lap. He bent to suck at her neck as he unhooked her bra, and then his hands were warm and rough on her skin, driving her to greater heights as he plucked at her nipples.

"I fucking love your tits, woman," he muttered against her skin, and then he bent to draw one pert breast into his mouth, sucking on her until she moaned his name.

He let go of her nipple, replacing his mouth with his fingers, pinching her lightly to keep her at attention, and he looked up at her with a gleam in his eye.

"You like it when I play with your tits?" he asked, his voice harsh and aroused, and she wanted to hear that voice as he shouted his pleasure, as he rattled the walls and disturbed the neighbors.

She nodded, but the answer wasn't good enough for him.

"Tell me," he ordered, pinching a little harder and twisting. Heat flooded through her at the pressure, and she bucked against him, unable to get enough friction against her clit with all the fabric in the way.

"Tell me," he said again.

"I fucking love it when you play with my tits," she growled, and his mouth fell back onto her, sucking with renewed vigor, nipping her lightly until her world narrowed to the feel of him against her, and fuck, she thought she could come from this alone.

He must have sensed that she was close, because he shoved his hips upward even as she pressed down, and then he nipped hard, so hard, just to the point of pain and she flew right over the edge, quaking and crying out in his lap.

One of his hands swept low on her back as she rocked, pulling her belly flush against his torso as he teased her, and then he slid underneath the waistband of her pants.

"You need to get out of these," he said, his voice muffled against her breast, and she'd never agreed with anything more. He pushed her up and off him, but held her firm, not letting her step away from him as he undid the fastenings on her pants, holding her gaze as he helped her out of the rest of her clothes.

"I can smell your pussy," he said, and the words were dirty, but they didn't feel that way. They felt close, intimate, and she hoped like hell he was still interested in putting his mouth to good use because she wasn't nearly done with him yet.

He put his hands on the fronts of her thighs, ran them up to the juncture of her thighs, and he stroked her with his thumbs. She had to reach out and grab his shoulders to stop herself from falling, and even then it was a near thing.

"Can I eat your pussy, Natasha?" he asked. "You smell so fucking good."

She whimpered at his words, knowing that her answering nod wouldn't be enough for him, but it was all she could manage with him fingering her and the image of his face buried between her thighs at the forefront of her mind.

He nuzzled her mound, the day's growth of beard rasping at her sensitive flesh, and then he asked again, "Please let me lick your cunt, Natasha. I want to taste you."

"Yes," she managed somehow. "Yes, I want you to eat my pussy. Make me come on your face, Clint, please."

She was dangerously close to begging, but she didn't give a shit because he slid down to the floor, taking her with him, and he guided her up his body until she was perched over his face. She eyed him warily; she'd never done this, and she wasn't sure about the etiquette involved in sitting on your partner's face.

Clint didn't have the same reservations.

He leaned up, parting her folds and licking the length of her slit, drawing his tongue with maddening slowness along her pussy, working her into a frenzy seemingly without effort. She pitched forward, unable to hold her weight on unsteady thighs, and she braced one hand on the carpet and buried the other in his hair.

He hummed his approval below her, licking and sucking, and Jesus fucking Christ, he knew what he was doing with that tongue of his. He nudged her thighs a little further apart as he ate her, and he wound a hand between them, using his fingers to fuck her as he sucked on her clit.

He pushed up, pulling his mouth from her briefly to growl, "I want to hear you, Nat. Let me hear you scream."

It wasn't hard to accommodate his request because he attacked her with renewed interest, pumping her in time to the undulations of his tongue. She cried out as he ate her, shouting his name and her pleasure all mixed together with curses in languages she'd thought she'd forgotten. She forgot other things then, too, like how she didn't want to smother him as she rode his face in earnest, bucking and grinding harder as the ache in the pit of her stomach grew.

He crooked his finger inside of her, and she gushed, actually felt the fluid escape her body and slick her thighs and his face. She might be embarrassed, but he held her hips tighter, sucked on her harder, and oh, oh, oh _fuuuuuuuuuuuck ._ . .

He didn't let her come down from her orgasm, but he climbed out from underneath her and toppled her forward to her hands and knees. Dimly, she heard the sound of fabric rustling, a zipper being undone, and then he was warm across her back, and she felt him bobbing against her entrance.

"I'm going to fuck your pussy now, baby," he said, the words making her moan. She wanted him, now, right now, pulsing and hot inside of her.

"Please fuck me with your big cock," she said, and she spread her legs a little wider and pressed backward, eager for his touch. "I want you to fuck me."

He grunted at that, and she felt his hand on her pussy, felt him parting her and placing the tip of his cock against her.

"Your cunt is so wet," he said, and it might have been stating the obvious (because how could she not be right now?), but the obvious coming from him was very, very hot, and he needed to hurry up with those promises because she needed him to fuck her already, to make her come again.

"Wet for you," she said because she knew he liked it, had seen the way his eyes flashed whenever she said such things, and then he slowly, surely pulled her back against him, filling her, stretching her open and wide.

"Oh,_ fuck me_!" she shouted when her ass met his lower torso, and he chuckled, a crude, enticing sound, and she dropped forward to the carpet, her face planting on the floor.

"Oh, I intend to," he promised.

And then he started thrusting.

The noises she made were unrecognizable to her, barely human sounds of pleasure that tore up out of her throat as his balls slapped against her backside. Her hand slid up to her clit of its own accord, and she touched herself while he fucked her, while he broke her down into a moaning puddle of hot aching.

"Fuck," he hissed when she started to quake. "I can feel you coming. Oh, _fuck_, Nat, you feel so fucking good coming on my cock!"

She couldn't take it anymore, and she fell into the abyss properly now, convulsing for what felt like years or eons or maybe just minutes. She might have blacked out there for a minute or two because they next thing she knew, she was laying flat on her stomach with Clint curled around her, stroking her hair softly.

"You with me?" he asked, sounding concerned, and she wondered just how far gone she'd been.

She slid into his arms and kissed him, slowly and thoroughly, and he must not have come yet because his hands were restless and his cock was pressing insistently into her belly.

"I think you shorted out my brain," she said, nipping on his lower lip, and then she straddled him, sitting up on belly to his obvious delight. His cock nudged at her ass, and she slid backward, grinning wickedly when he hissed.

"You like that?" she asked, enjoying the way the tables had turned in her favor.

He bit his lip, and she reached behind her to grab onto his shaft, to pump him experimentally, reveling in the swift, harsh curse that escaped his lips.

She came to her knees above him, passing his cock off to her free hand in front, and then she ran his glans along the length of her pussy, watching his face the entire time and feeling the fire of arousal kindle along her spine once more.

"Christ, Nat, stop teasing and fuck me already," he groaned, his fingers digging into her hips, and tugged on her, really pulled, tried to thrust himself up inside of her from below. Maybe some other time when she wasn't in such a good mood, when she hadn't come all over his face and had him fuck her until she blacked out, maybe then she would prolong his want, maybe then she would feel like torturing him a little.

Today, though, she just wanted to return the favor.

She dropped down onto his length, taking him to the hilt, and she was glad she was still so wet from their earlier activities because he slid home without any difficulty, easing the empty ache that had grown up inside of her.

He was staring at her tits as she started to move, and she took the hint, grabbing hold of his hands and drawing them up to grasp her breasts as she moved.

"I want you to grab my tits while I fuck you," she said, her voice hoarse. She twisted her hips then, and his hands clenched in response. She moved harder, faster on top of him, moaning because he felt really fucking good buried inside of her cunt.

He opened his eyes after a while, and it gratified her to see how he had trouble deciding where to look, at her face or his hands where they were latched onto her tits, but ultimately he ended up staring down between them, where their bodies joined, watching with his mouth wide as he entered her again and again.

"Your pussy is so fucking tight," he groaned, eyes still fastened on their lower bodies. "I love watching you take my cock."

She got that, knew exactly what a view the two of them presented when they were having sex because he'd taken her in the bathroom two days ago, fucking her from behind in front of the big mirror, and she'd come hard watching him pound into her.

"Love taking your cock," she said in response, and his pupils dilated impossibly more, his eyes now pools of liquid black.

Just like that, she was close again, but that was probably a good thing, since she felt him tighten up, felt his cock twitch in that peculiar way she'd already discovered presaged his impending release.

Without warning, he sat up, shifting her in his lap until his mouth was fastened firm to hers and his hands were clenching her ass. She wasn't sure any more who was the one in control and it didn't fucking matter because this was _Clint_ and she had been wanting to do this with him for years, and she was rapidly discovering that not a whole hell of a lot mattered when he was balls deep inside her.

"Oh, shit," he moaned against her mouth, gripping her hips tighter, and she knew he was going to leave marks there. "Fuck, I'm gonna come, baby."

He did, and the hot pulse of his semen inside of her set her off, the subtle rippling of his cock as he ejaculated tipping her into yet another orgasm, quieter than her previous one, but still intense.

Laying beside her, their limbs tangled in the aftermath, he whispered into her hair, "You're so fucking perfect."

The warmth that had been flooding her changed a little then, deepened into something else, and she surprised herself by wanting to say the same thing back, by _feeling_ the same thing. She blinked twice, then turned her face up to look at him.

Grinning she said, "You're not so bad either, hot stuff."

He smacked lightly across the ass, laughing even as she rolled on top of him and held him down. She leaned in to kiss him, unable to resist him when he had that wide, goofy grin on his face. His mouth tasted different than she expected, sweeter now that it lacked the immediate force of desire, and they laid there on the shitty, industrial grade carpet of her SHIELD-rented apartment, holding each other close.

A little while later, when his neck got a crick in it from straining upward to meet her lips and when her still-sore ribs started to ache, she let him chase her into the bedroom, let him toss her in front of him onto the bed, and if her heart hurt a little when he held her close, if their fucking felt dangerously close to something else, well, it could be their secret.


	7. Chapter 6

_Thanks for reading this far! I hope you guys enjoyed reading this even a little bit as much as I enjoyed writing it. As ever, I'd love to hear what you think!_

* * *

Clint had little trouble pulling the late shift on the night of the delivery; most of the other guys in the warehouse had families to be home with, so he didn't even have to convince anyone that they had had better things to do that night.

In a strange reversal of roles, she was the one watching and Clint was doing handling the up close and personal undercover work. She could see why he liked working behind the scenes, even if it wasn't her style. She liked to be in the thick of the action, liked pulling the strings and calling the shots, but Clint worked best at a distance. That didn't mean he wasn't good at her job anymore than it meant that she couldn't handle a little surveillance, just that they were both more comfortable elsewhere.

Currently, she was perched high in the rafters of the building, peering down from above on Clint as he moved a few skids. Mark (that slimy fucking creep) was off in one corner, supposedly overseeing the sale as the new head of sales (the previous head had taken over for the boss), but from where she stood, it looked like was just overseeing another game of Angry Birds.

Jackass.

Something set off one of the motion alarms she had rigged at the entrance to the business park, and she tapped a few keys on the laptop beside her to bring up the feed.

"We've got company," she said into her mike, and she saw Clint tip his hat in silent acknowledgment that he'd heard her.

Show time.

She had just managed to get her rifle into position when the warehouse doors slid open. A large, green truck pulled in, and she watched through her scope as four men dressed in inconspicuous jumpsuits got out of the vehicle. After a brief argument about Clint ("Who's the new guy?"), they got down to brass tacks, going over the final details of the sale. It was boring as all hell, but several things were fairly clear from the conversation.

First, the crates that Clint had moved earlier were filled with advanced weaponry, not olives. Second, she could tell that Mark was under no illusions about what he was selling. And third, and this really was the most important part, they were definitely dealing with HYDRA.

She grinned in self-congratulations at the last part; she _knew_ something was weird at this place. It was nice to see that she hadn't lost her touch.

She kept listening to the leader of the little group talking with Mark through her earpiece, and it seemed like everything was going smoothly. Clint would get a tracker on the truck, the two of them would get the hell out of Dodge, and SHIELD would send in a full contingent of operatives to take care of the truck once it was outside a population center. It was clean and simple and they'd be back in New York by morning.

And then the door to the upper office opened, and Sally walked in.

"Oh, hi, Frank! I didn't realize you had a night delivery!" she exclaimed walking down the stairs. Natasha cursed under her breath. She didn't like it when civilians wandered into the line of fire on a regular day. It only made her more nervous that it was Sally, her friend who was wandering blithely into danger.

Well, she thought as she readjusted her scope, maybe Sally was in on it, too. Maybe she kept the books for this particular aspect of the business. Maybe, but even if Natasha wasn't going to discount the possibility outright, she had a hard time believing the same woman who brought her brownies and asked for gossip had any idea that the company she worked for was smuggling illegal weaponry.

"Sally," Clint greeted, walking up to her and putting his hand on her arm as he tried to steer her back toward the entrance. "You shouldn't be here." His voice was low, thick with the suggestion that she get the hell out of there, but Sally had never been good at reading those sorts of signals, and she continued on heedless of the warning.

"Oh, yeah, well, I forgot my purse," she said. "One of the kids needs me to write a check for their basketball team, and I would have put it off, but you know how kids are. She waited until the last minute to tell me . . . "

Natasha was feeling nervous in earnest now. Mark was gesturing more widely as he spoke, and the head HYDRA agent didn't appear too pleased with what he was hearing. If this got ugly, it would happen fast.

"Do something," she hissed lowly, knowing Clint could hear her, hoping that her words would somehow quicken his movements

"Sally, you need to leave," Clint said, peering over his shoulder at where Mark was still talking heatedly with the HYDRA agents. She knew Clint was feeling the same unease that she was up here in the rafters, and she wanted to smack Sally over the head to force her to take his good advice.

"Frank, what . . .?" Sally started to say, and the head agent chose that moment to draw his gun and hold it to Mark's head.

"Shit, shit shit," Natasha said, standing and reaching for her rope. She had to get down there, cover identities be damned. If it were just the two of them and Mark, she would have let it go on longer, would have let Mark try to talk his own way out of the situation (and she wouldn't have cared if he couldn't). Clint could more than handle himself in that situation, but with Sally in the mix, she couldn't in good conscious let this play out.

Clint had already sprung into action, pulling Sally down behind a stack of shipping crates the moment the HYDRA agent drew on Mark. Clint pulled out his own handgun, obviously intent on defending the older woman. Sally panicked though, screaming at the sight of Clint's gun, and she pulled away from him, running out into the open, toward the HYDRA agents.

It was over in a matter of seconds.

Already having handed Mark off to one of his lackeys, the agent who'd been doing all the talking grabbed Sally, holding a gun on her before Natasha could even blink, and then he called out, "I know you're there, so you might as well come out. Unless you don't care what happens to your friend here."

She didn't think they'd noticed her, so she held back and waited, though it pained her to do so. Her suspicions were confirmed when Clint stood, holding his weapon and hands above his head as he came out into the open.

"Just don't hurt her," he said, walking slowly toward them.

"Stop moving," the leader commanded, his gun still firmly to the head of his hostage. "Put your gun on the ground and kick it over here."

Clint obeyed, as she'd expected. There was no good reason for him to try anything yet, not with all of their attention trained on him. This would be up to her.

Silently, she sent a distress signal to SHIELD and then clipped herself to the repelling rope they'd set up earlier that night, waiting for her chance. If she could take out the leader when she dropped, she could leave it to Clint to take care of the guy who had Sally by the neck. She knew he had his backup in his ankle holster, and he was quick enough to neutralize two of the others before they even realized what was happening.

That said, it made her gut knot to see the remaining two agents hold their weapons on Clint. She wasn't surprised at the feeling, though she was a little unnerved by how it made her feel. They'd been in situations like this before, of course, but the roles had been reversed – she'd been the one surrounded, and he'd provided the distraction. For the first time, she started to understand the look in his eyes after missions like these, the way he stared at her as if he were drinking her in, the way he hung around her for more time than strictly necessary. The idea that he could be ripped from her at any moment . . .

She gritted her teeth. She could think about that later, though, after Clint and Sally were safe.

"Who do you work for?" the lead agent asked Clint.

"_Hellenic Imports of_ . . . " Clint started.

The man laughed coldly. "Don't feed me that line of shit," he said. "We all know the quality of the people who work here. What are you? CIA? FBI?"

"Dude, I just work in the warehouse," Clint repeated, taking one small step closer to Sally.

The man cocked his pistol and pointed it at Clint, and that was the opportunity she'd been waiting for.

Natasha kicked off from the rafter, taking aim for the agents as she dropped, and the sound of her descent drew everyone's gaze upward.

Everyone's gaze, that is, except for Clint's. She saw him take out the man closest to him with one well placed elbow and a punch to the groin, even as she landed on top of the lead agent and brought him to his knees with the force of her weight. Sally was no fool, nor was she the sort of person to make the same mistake twice, so the moment that the agent was down, she ran for cover.

Natasha slid seamlessly into the well-practiced give and take that she and Clint had cultivated over the years, and if she'd been worried that things would be different, that they wouldn't be able to work together as efficiently now that their relationship had changed, all of those notions were well and truly dispelled as they took care of the small contingent of HYDRA agents.

She knocked out the second of the HYDRA agents and whipped her head around, still on guard as she took stock of the situation. Clint had subdued the other two agents and was already busy zip-tying their hands and feet, which just left . . .

"Don't move!" came Mark's voice.

She turned to find him pointing a gun at her face. He didn't look like he'd ever handled such a weapon before, though, and she guessed he'd picked it up off the ground from where it had been knocked aside during the confusion.

She held up her hands and approached Mark slowly, counting on the fact that he wouldn't want to kill someone in cold blood.

Probably.

"We're just here to help," she said calmly, her eyes never leaving Mark's hands where they were clutched around the gun. She widened her eyes, tried to look as harmless as she could in light of the fact that he'd probably seen her take out the two HYDRA agents only moments before. Still, men like Mark never really thought she was capable of half the things she could do, and he'd probably already rationalized that the only reason she'd been able to take care of the two agents was because she'd had the element of surprise on her side.

It wasn't.

"I said stop moving!" he shrieked. "Stand still or I'll blow your head off!"

"You might have an easier time of that," she said, still trying to look demure, "if you didn't have the safety on."

Mark blinked, just like she knew she would, and the second that his attention faltered was the second that she took the last two steps to cover the distance between them, to smack the gun out of his hands and punch him squarely in the face.

Well, that certainly felt awesome. The blood that started flowing from his nose was pretty nice, too.

"You won't get away with this!" Mark shouted, his voice echoing shrilly in the warehouse. She wondered if he even had the slightest clue what was going on here. Probably not. "My employers will . . ."

Rolling her eyes, Natasha hit him over the head with the butt of her glock. He slumped to the ground in a faint.

She turned back around, looking for Sally and expecting that her friend would be panicking or worse. Instead, she was staring at Natasha from the side of the room with an appraising look on her face.

"You know," Sally said thoughtfully. "I have been wanting to do that for years."

Natasha grinned.

By the time she was done with Mark (and maybe, yeah, she tied him up a little tighter than she strictly needed to), she could hear the comforting sound of police sirens approaching, and she knew that SHIELD wasn't far off either.

"You okay?" she asked, crossing the warehouse floor over to Clint. He had the beginnings of a nasty bruise forming on his forehead, but otherwise looked no worse for the wear.

"Better now that I don't have a gun shoved in my face," he said. "Nice shooting, by the way."

"Got a few pointers from this marksman I know a while back," she teased. "Annoying jackass, but his aim wasn't bad."

He winced as he carefully stretched, twisting in one direction than the other. "Annoying, you say? Because I heard he was charming and erudite."

She snorted. "Don't tell me they taught you words like erudite in the circus."

"I do read, you know," he said.

"Skin mags don't count."

"Spoilsport."

* * *

They were talking with the cops, giving the agent in charge a run down of events and their official contact information when she caught sight of Sally, sitting on a bench with a blanket draped loosely across her shoulders. Natasha touched Clint on the shoulder and excused herself.

"Hey," she said, sitting down on the bench beside her friend.

There were a lot of things Sally could have said in response to her greeting, and the majority of them were harsh (if completely warranted). Instead, Sally went with, "I'm guessing your real name isn't Rose."

"Natasha."

"Well, Natasha, what the hell am I supposed to do now?"

She didn't have an answer for her, not really, because what are you supposed to say to someone who has witnessed firsthand the violent downfall of the company they work for? There was no way _Hellenic Imports_ would stay in business, not after something like this. Even if the cops didn't care, SHIELD would make sure of it.

Not for the first time, Natasha felt bad for the innocent bystanders in all of this, Sally included.

Her friend sighed into the night air. "I don't suppose I can tell anybody about this?"

It wasn't really a question, but Natasha said, "No. I mean, I guess you could but . . ."

"Then you'd have to kill me?" Sally finished with half a grin.

She smiled. "Uh, no, actually, I was going to say, you could but who would believe you?" she said, then added, "Killing works, too, though."

"Good. I always wanted to be threatened by a secret government agency." Sally turned a curious eye toward Natasha. "You do work for a secret government agency, right?"

"I'm afraid that is classified information," she said, then lowered her voice to add, "We're the good guys. Don't worry."

Sally smiled. "I wasn't. You're good people, Ro . . . Natasha."

She didn't think anyone had ever said anything like that about her before, or if they had, they hadn't known who Natasha really was. Sally knew, though, and the feeling that her words created was warm somewhere deep in her chest, a pleasant, happy feeling quite unlike anything she'd felt before.

"And Frank over there, he's not really Frank either, is he?" Sally asked, and Natasha couldn't help but thinking that she'd be a good fit for SHIELD. Most people didn't ask the kinds of questions Sally did. Most people would be freaking out right now. Sally, obviously, wasn't most people.

"No, he's not," Natasha confirmed.

Sally nodded. "So, do you two work together, or . . ."

Natasha ducked her head, feeling strangely shy about the turn in conversation. She wasn't really ready to talk about her relationship with Clint, not the real one, not yet. She admired him, cared for him, sure, but that other . . . _thing_ was getting mixed up with the sex and hormones, and it was hard to put her finger precisely on what she did and did not think about Clint Barton.

Sally was expecting an answer though, not for Natasha to pine silently for the man standing less than one hundred yards away.

"He's my partner," she said because it was true, or at least as close to the truth as she could come up with.

Sally laughed heartily. "Is that what they're calling it these days?"

Clint called her name then, made a wide motion with his hand, and headed toward her car. They were done here, then.

"Well, Sally, I don't know if I'll see you again, but it was good to work with you. You going to be okay to get home?" Natasha asked as she stood.

"Yeah," she said. "Beth is coming by in a few to take me."

Natasha hated leaving things like this, always had, but that was the job. She went in, did her thing, and if she made friends, they never lasted.

"Be seeing you," Natasha said, smiling and hoping that her words weren't a lie. Maybe she could talk to Fury about Sally. There were always openings in the lower echelons of SHIELD.

Still, Natasha was never one for drawn out goodbyes, particularly when she'd already said her piece, so she turned and started walking toward Clint.

"Hey, Natasha?" Sally called after her. "For what it's worth? Whatever kind of partners you say you are, that man is in love with you."

She crooked half a smile over her shoulder. "Yeah, Sal. I know."

Natasha slid into the passenger's side of the car, happy to let Clint drive. She was feeling pretty strung out physically and emotionally, not really ready for all of this to be over. They would head back to their respective abodes now to gather up their personal belongings and any eyes only material. A SHIELD team would be through within the hour to scrub their places down, leaving no trace of the two agents.

Idly, she wondered if she could convince Clint to drive back to New York with her. They had a lot to talk about, and after an assignment like this one, she was fairly sure she could get Coulson to buy them a few days off before their next assignment. Judging from the tone of his hesitance when she'd slid into the car, she had a feeling Clint wouldn't be hard to convince.

"So what did Sally have to say?" he asked, adjusting the mirrors for his height and putting the car into gear.

Natasha smirked, thinking of her friend.

"Well," she replied, "if I told you that, I'd have to kill you."


End file.
